Christopher took the pilot’s seat and after a quick systems’ check, he started to compose a quick note to send back to the colony, including Margaret, Patricia, Chuck, Lucius, and Peanut in the distribution list. As soon as Doc Long and Dr. Abbott finished their examinations, he would put together a more complete status update.
“We got here fine, and
Alice and Dorothy held
it together very well.
Please make sure that
Zelda and Clarice’s
family members and
friends are supported;
maybe a visit from one
of the other
psychologists. Just
from looking at an
image of the damaged
jumper, it could very
well be a total loss.
Peanut’s assessment of
those projectiles was
right on the money.
They just caught a
dozen or so all at the
same time. The station
is intact, Peanut’s guys
are installing the extra
power generators and
shield emitters as we
speak. Tomorrow we
plan to take out every
single one of those
railguns, the factories
where they make
parts, and I’m still
thinking about what
the grand gesture will
be. I have an idea
that’s going to be a
real statement. And
don’t worry, it’s going
to be exactly what we
all want. Chris out.”
“Please send that out, G2.”
“Sent, Christopher. Is there anything else I may assist you with at this time?”
“No, thank you. That will be all.”
Christopher sat, thinking through any number of retaliatory acts they could pull off. The trouble was that anything they did would most likely be quickly forgotten once the media frenzy died down.
He turned his attention to the various reports being generated by all the different crews working on the station. He was also keeping an eye out for either of the doctors’ reports on the surviving crew. He had to admit that Dorothy and Alice were top notch. He hoped that they would weather this incident well. He wanted to talk to them, but the last thing either of them needed was to hear anything from him other than the “well done” he sent when they first arrived in orbit.
When the report on Clarice and Zelda’s fatal injuries scrolled across his screen, Christopher’s anger resurfaced. He made his decision: he knew exactly what the perfect response was to their deaths and he would reveal it in the morning.
Doc Long was completing his physical examination of Dorothy, which mostly consisted of checking her pulse, blood pressure, and pupillary response. What he was most interested in was her mental state which he tested with gentle conversation. He had already looked at Alice and found her remarkably calm and articulate about the loss of her friends. Dr. Abbott was being more thorough, given her training. She was privately impressed with the resilience of the two survivors.
Peanut’s engineers first installed the additional power units, electrical generators that used the G-wave effect in a simple perpetual-motion system, followed by the placement of additional shield emitters on the exterior walls of the space station. The plan was to take the remaining jumper back to the colony and leave two of the modified units behind with the replacement crew. The engineering crew also installed new programming that would hold the shields when they were at their highest power to help deflect projectiles launched against the station.
Christopher called a halt to all the work in progress at 11 P.M., wanting everyone sharp the following morning. He wanted to be sure that there would be no repeat of the what brought them all to Earth in the first place.
* * *
There was a knock on the door, waking President Wilcox from a restless sleep.
“Madam President. Sorry to wake you, but the ships are moving toward Earth,” Agent Miller said through the door.
“I’m up, Tanya. Be out in a minute.”
“Very well.”
Wilcox dressed and splashed some water on her face. Pulling her hair back into a ponytail, she decided to skip makeup.
When she emerged from the bedroom in the bunker, Slade was already up, eating a bagel, a cup of coffee at his elbow.
“How the hell can you not look like hell after leaving here,” she began, checking her watch, “a little over four hours ago?”
“Black don’t crack?” he replied, getting the laugh from her.
She looked at the big display and saw that the spaceships were over halfway to Earth. The defense condition was set at level three, and the command bunker was fully manned.
“Colonel are all the DS500s standing down?” she asked.
“Yes, Madam President. We’re at a heightened defense posture, but our offensive forces are also standing down.”
“Good,” she said. As they dropped closer to the surface, they began to split up, fanning across the country. “Any idea what their destinations are?”
“Hard to tell, but two of the ships are heading to the east coast,” Colonel Denton replied. “Stand by.”
They watched the display coming from Shelter 14 as it flipped to show North America. Several of the ships were vectoring in on the west coast toward Los Angeles.
“Madam President, it appears that the ships are headed toward military bases.”
“Are they maybe heading toward railgun installations?” suggested Slade.
“Colonel, have everyone get the hell away from those weapons, NOW!” Wilcox ordered.
Denton passed the command down the line, as the ships arrowed toward Naval Bases San Diego and Norfolk. A lone spaceship headed for the Middle East.
“Good call, Mr. Slade,” said Denton.
“I hope they’re accurate enough to take out the railguns without sinking the destroyers,” said Slade.
“If that’s all they’re intending to do. Given how they’ve reacted in the past, I wouldn’t count my chickens,” Wilcox cautioned.
“Madam President, all the DS500s in San Diego have been destroyed by a beam that just turned them into dust. This is new, ma’am, and quite disturbing. We have to wonder whether or not there’s any practical limit to their capabilities, to their technology,” Denton said, frustrated.
“This country really screwed the pooch with the whole race issue. Imagine if they still lived here,” Wilcox said to Slade.
“Maybe. But perhaps it’s the fact that they are completely away from here that they can do what they do. You have to wonder just how many of us have had our work coopted or outright stolen, or worse yet, been marginalized and undermined forever,” Slade said.
“Ma’am, we’re getting security footage from the Norfolk. That’s the Ardmore,” Denton pointed out as the video feed was on the main screen.
They watched as sailors evacuated the Ardmore and the destroyer right next to it. Moments later the DS500 started to melt away in a swirl of dust, a hint of atmospheric distortion in the center of the dust.
“What in hell is that?” Denton exclaimed.
“Just another reason military assholes should leave those people the hell alone?” Wilcox said sarcastically.
“Point taken, Madam President,” Denton said, a slight smile on his lips. “FYI, the air force is flying high cover over all the installations of the DS500s, including over Washington, D.C., three of their spaceships are due here in five minutes, but the fighters are not going to engage.”
“Unless there’s some idiot floating the same mind set as Archer!” Slade said.
“No shit. But if they can see what this weapon can do, they’d be pretty stupid to try something,” Wilcox added.
All of a sudden the consoles went dark, as well as all th
e displays except for the main screen. The scene from Norfolk was replaced by that of a handsome black man around thirty-five to forty years of age.
“That’s the same guy who confronted President Laughlin if I’m not mistaken,” Slade pointed out. “And he looks like he hasn’t aged a day.”
“Madam President, my name is Christopher Wright. And yes, I also spoke to President Laughlin when the FBI took my people into custody, I imagine you remember how that turned out. I’m not here to relitigate the past, but to express my anger at your murdering two of my people. You may speak and I will hear you.”
“I apologize for your peoples’ tragic deaths, what happened was the work of a rogue member of the military, not on my nor anyone else’s orders.”
“I’m sorry Madam President, the military in the United States of America is controlled by civilian authority. The buck stops with you. For your information, the railgun installations around the capital are being destroyed as we speak. As for the Colonel, he cannot contact anyone outside the bunker. I despair of you not leaving us alone and the murder of two of our people is going to cost you dearly. Enough is enough.”
“Wait just a damn minute. You have kept everyone from space for years. What gives you the right? Who the hell do you think you are, denying the entire planet from exploring space?” she demanded.
“Until you learn to act civilized, you will not be allowed to spread your insanity into our domain,” Christopher answered evenly.
“How dare you punish the whole planet? What gives you the right?” said Wilcox, getting to her feet and pointing her finger at the screen.
“Good question. Perhaps the same imperative that gave you the right to subjugate the rights, privileges, and lives of my people for centuries? After all, might makes right; it’s been that way for thousands of years. Why would you expect some sort of enlightened behavior out of my people that you yourself haven’t mastered? Your FBI confined my people illegally for no reason but their living in space. Where do you get the nerve to demand anything of me? When it comes right down to it, we own you.”
Wilcox started to sputter, not able to get a coherent sentence out.
“We have kept you contained for years with two ships and a base station. You apparently take that as provocation enough to murder my people. For your troubles all your railguns have been destroyed, next are the manufacturing plants where they were built. And finally, since you just couldn’t get the message, I have decided exactly how you will pay for killing members of my family. You can just sit there and watch.”
You Haven’t Done Nothing
Christopher directed G2 to maintain the isolation of the White House command center, no one allowed in or out, but to leave a video channel open to receive his jumper’s gun camera video feed.
Once the GST railgun assembly plant in Tennessee was destroyed, as well as the smaller plants that prefabricated parts, all the jumpers flew to rendezvous above Washington, D.C. When the last jumper was minutes away, Christopher ordered G2 to ring all the phones in the Pentagon warning them of the imminent destruction of the building.
The jumpers drifted toward Arlington, Virginia in loose formation while the air force kept their fighters at a ten-mile perimeter surrounding them. As they approached the Pentagon, the jumper crews saw thousands of people fleeing the massive building. Several news helicopters were broadcasting the evacuation back to their stations, but they pulled back when the formation of the colonial ships arrived, their caution outweighing their desire to sensationalize what was about to happen.
When those fleeing wound down to a trickle, Christopher waited until a clear perimeter resolved itself around the building and then radioed for the jumpers to form up.
The spacecraft lined up in formation and begin a low, slow pass toward the building with Christopher and Angela flying high cover to watch for inbound fighters and to send the video feed to the President in the bunker.
On the first pass, the top of the building vanished into dust before the passing spaceships. The formation flew past the vast structure, then turned and flew over the building ninety degrees from their original pass.
“Do you think everyone cleared out?” Angela asked Christopher.
“Doesn’t matter. It was a fifty/fifty toss up whether I was going to warn them or not, regardless of what the council wanted. Killing a few thousand of them for the two of ours that they killed was a reasonable ratio as far as I’m concerned,” he replied coldly.
On the fifth pass the building was gone down to the ground level, but Christopher saw the basement and ordered the jumpers to dig down to bedrock.
Once the destruction was complete, with severed water mains pouring water into the hole, the jumpers formed up on Angela and slowly flew back to the White House as the news helicopters returned to transmit video of the carnage. When the jumpers arrived over the White House, Christopher opened a channel into the command center.
“Do you understand my message, Madam President?” he said.
“You are a monster!” she shouted.
“Perhaps. However, I have decided that if you attack any of my people, the consequences will be unambiguously harsh. You murdered two of my people, I destroyed some worthless real estate, at least worthless to me.”
“But the attack on your people was the work of one man, one crazy General who disobeyed orders. You cannot hold an entire nation responsible for a single rogue operative. We even have him in custody, had you asked I would have turned him over to you. Your destruction of the Pentagon is madness,” Wilcox protested.
“Madness? Really? Merely because we have decided to live off this planet, to live without the yoke of prejudice, free of the racist bullshit you imposed on the colored people across the globe, you somehow believe that you have the right to meddle into our affairs?
“If any of my people want to land anywhere in this country, or anyplace for that matter, just to buy a pack of gum and they are accosted in any way, you just remember what happened to the most expensive building in the world. And the only reason it was the Pentagon and not the White House was to prevent me from having to deal with someone who could very well be dumber than you are.
“My people asked that I avoid taking any lives in making my statement today, and to the best of our ability, we did. However, I have no problem with killing millions in the name of our being treated like any white man around the globe and for damn sure it amuses me to cost you trillions of dollars for murdering my people.
“As per my conversation with President Laughlin, this conversation was recorded and will be posted around the world. But know this, we are through playing with you. Your litany of excuses for your military going rogue, dating back to General Kaminski, are falling on deaf ears.
“My suggestion to you is to clean your own house of such rogue elements and never attack any of my people again,” Christopher concluded.
“But there’s no way I can control the actions of everyone, both here and abroad. Are you so unreasonable as to punish the American people for the acts of a few malcontents who care nothing at all for the lives of others, let alone their own?” Wilcox pleaded.
“Madam President, do I strike you as a stupid man? No, scratch that, I can see how the answer can go either way. Did I punish you for the acts of the Russians who fired those nuclear-tipped rockets at me?”
“You barred us from space. All we did was send a ship out to talk to you, to try to open a dialogue. You have so much to teach us.”
Christopher laughed so hard it took a few moments for him to resume.
“You mean we have so much you and the rest of the world would like to steal from us. We are the antithesis of white exceptionalism. We have achieved so much more than the best you have to offer on this planet. We did this because of a lack of white interference, because the best and brightest of us were always better than you. Mr. Slade and Laughlin’s Chief of Staff are proof enough of our innate superiority to function at the top leve
ls of white society with distinction. What did you think was going to happen when blacks were held back at every turn in this country? Did you think all of us were going to roll over and die, to be content to remain second class citizens, let whites take every advancement we made in science, medicine, and technology to profit from and call their own?
“You’re parasites, living off the largess of everyone else. I would no more allow any of our work to benefit the United States than I would host a Klan meeting in my home. Now, I have the remains of our two crewmates to return home. I hope you take my warning to heart, otherwise I’m fully capable of costing you several trillion more of your precious dollars, maybe next time destroying Wall Street. And remember, if one of my people decide to land their ship at the Smithsonian Gift Shop to get a souvenir, they best be left alone. Chris, out.”
Moments later, all the systems powered back up and the panel controlling the elevator unlocked.
Wilcox turned to Slade who just shrugged his shoulders. “Except for the whole Pentagon thing it went pretty much as you suspected,” he said.
“Except for that, how did you like the play Mrs. Lincoln?” she said, getting a chuckle from Slade.
Agent Miller stuck her head into the conference room, “You’re clear to go back upstairs.”
“Thank you, Tanya. We’ll be up in a minute,” replied Wilcox.
“Ma’am, most of these systems are offline because of the destruction of the Pentagon, we need to find alternative lines of communication,” said Colonel Denton.
“Whatever. Time for me to go upstairs and face the music. I’m going to grab a shower and a change of clothes. I’ll be in the office in forty-five minutes,” she said, heading to the elevator followed by Agent Miller.
* * *
Constance, Silas, Aidan, and a few students were in the recreation center watching the playback of the destruction of the Pentagon on the national news. They were impressed with the power the colonists possessed and their apparent indifference to the destruction of the venerable structure.
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