Heavier Than Air

by T. E. Vario (t_e_vario@yahoo. com)

  The Lt. Commander chucked. “Well, if you don’t mind, let’s go back over the intelligence you have, and what you are planning to do.”

  “We don’t have much sir, but both my unit and a couple of others on the ground have had situations in the past month that looked suspiciously like the enemy knew our plans in advance.

  “I’m aware of the two incidents on the ground, but I have not heard the details of what happened in the air.”

  “I was flying that day, but at least 40 miles from the incident, so I’m getting this second hand. I trust the pilot that survived the incident, and the communications trail checks her report. However, we can’t be 100% sure that there is not an another explanation, or that facts were missed.”

  “I understand Captain. Any wartime intelligence is fragmentary. Nevertheless, what made you suspicious?”

  “We were given information that the Gengon were planning a bombing run with a dirty bomb. We set up a counter-plan to deal with that threat, which required a radio communication if the bomber slipped through our interception screen. The pilots followed their orders exactly, and spotted what they assumed was a Gengon bomber heading south. When they lost the plane in cloud one of the pilots made the radio call and continued in pursuit. The whole thing turned out to be a setup. Three Gengon fighters were waiting for our planes, and managed to kill one of our best pilots. All three bandits got away.”

  “If I understand you right Captain, you suspect that you were fed the faulty intelligence about the dirty bomb to set up the ambush, and then the Gengon got the details of your countermeasures before the flight began.”

  “That’s about the size of it Sir.”

  “That means that they are not only reading our mail, they are adding their own letters too it. I can see now why you suspect Section 12. Did you check your own communications security?”

  “Yes we did Sir. Nothing was transmitted past the perimeter, and e-mail traffic was limited to some minor clerical data in the time period in question. I don’t think it came from us.”

  “Interesting, because the two situations on the ground were similar. In both cases we got Intel. that there was something we would want to intercept at a certain location. In both cases the teams sent were attacked before they reached the objective. We got suspicious the second time and dropped a second team almost on top of the supposed objective. There was nothing there. It was just electronic bate to get our men on a certain path at a certain time. We lost eight men all together.”

  “It almost seems too obvious Sir, like something we are supposed to catch.”

  “I thought the same thing. But let’s say that we suspect that our intelligence is being tampered with, but we can’t trace the source. That would make us suspect all of our intelligence, including the information that happens to be true. That’s a big advantage to the Gengon.”

  John nodded. There was a lot riding on finding out the source of the leak.

  “Sir, I’d better get to the hanger to keep up my cover story. I’ll be sure you are kept abreast of any developments, or any further lapses.”

  “Very good Captain. Best of luck with this mission.”

  “Thank you Sir.”

  * * *

  John made his way over to the maintenance facility. There was another level of security protecting the hanger containing the Y class prototypes. He was issued an orange badge and asked to keep it prominently displayed on his chest. Anyone spotted without an orange badge was in serious risk of being perforated by security guards that were on station both inside and outside of the hanger.

  A young man in civilian clothes with both an orange and green badge displayed walked up to John the moment he entered the hanger.

  “Captain Young. I’m Ian Valcovich. I’m the lead designer behind the Y class ships.”

  “Pleased to meet you Ian. I have to admit that I know very little about the Y class, so you will have to start from scratch.”

  “No problem. We’ve tried to keep the innovations a secret, so I’m delighted to hear that information had not made it to you. Please treat everything I tell you as level 3 classified.”

  “OK, I can’t tell anyone including my CO at level 3.”

  “Right. Hush, hush until the first units are delivered to your location. Here are the two prototypes, which are identical. The A unit is a bit ahead of the B unit in construction, so you will be able to see different things by examining each of the airframes. Let’s start with the B model.”

  “Looks like the halves of the fuselage are built separately.”

  “Right. We have two molds to form the sides of the fuselage, two for the top and bottom of the wings, and two for the stabilizer. We apply a coating of release agent to the inside of the molds, and then add layers of graphite fiber cloth and epoxy to build up the structural framework. We put in all of the internal structure and control systems while the halves are separate, and then glue the two halves together at the end.”

  “I hope you use a good glue. I’d hate to have the two halves separate while I was flying.”

  “It’s aircraft grade epoxy. The whole plane is basically made out of epoxy, with the fibers adding stiffness. It’s stressed to plus or minus 9 Gs, which is pretty strong.”

  “So what’s different about the Y class?”

  “Some of it is just refinements, such as a better airfoil. This 17-meter wing gets a 60 to 1 glide ratio at 65 knots. That’s almost 5% better than the X model, or the Gengon’s best ship. That glide ratio will help gliding between lift and getting away, but it does not help climb. For climb, we’ve copied the best pilots we know of – soaring birds.”

  “Birds have all sorts of control over their wings that I don’t think you can do in fiberglass.”

  “You’re right Captain, at least for now. But we did steal a great idea from the hawks as to how to thermal better. Halks spread the feathers of their wing tips when they are thermalling, like fingers of a very long hand. The air flowing off the first feather helps the next one be more efficient, and so on through five or six feathers. We’ve done the same thing with a fingered wingtip on this plane. The wing is not finished, but I can deploy the tip.”

  Ian Valcovich went to the end of one of the wings standing on sawhorses, and pushed a lever protruding from the wing root. At the opposite end of the wing the surface split into four fingers, with the rearward fingers pointing somewhat towards the back to allow gaps.

  “Just like a hawk, these variable wingtips should give you incredible low speed control. That should make it easier to center in lift, or to out-turn a bad guy you are trying to kill. You will need to retract them before you hit 60 knots. The thin tiplets will flutter like crazy if you exceed 60 knots with them still deployed.”

  John was impressed. It was a great idea, but not something he thought they were technically capable of. He was dying to try it out. Being able to out-turn an enemy plane would be a huge advantage, at least until they copied the technology.

  “Ian, this is impressive. How soon until we get to test fly it?”

  “I’m expecting the airframe A to be ready in three days, although not fully instrumented. Airframe B will probably take us another 10 days.”

  “That’s great. I’ve done the first flights of the last two generations. I hope the commander assigns me to do this one as well.”

  “That would be great Captain Young. I’ll be there for the test flights, so I’m sure we will see each other again.

  “Looking forward to it Ian. Thanks for the tour. I’d better get going. I’ve got a dinner date, and a long ride back tonight.”

  John gave back his orange badge. He was not cleared to go into Section 12, so he had gotten the message to Sara to meet him at Aunt Rebecca’s.

  * * *

  Aunt Rebecca’s house was one block back from the main street leading to the base. It was an older residential neighborhood, and had housed of many officers over the past 70 years. Aunt Rebecca’s late husband Nathan had been in the Signal Corps,
and had retired from his last post at Camp Williams. They had lived in their home for 16 years until Nathan died, and that was eight years ago. The house was a single story clapboard box painted a light yellow with white trim. The roof was partially covered in pine needles from the two large trees shading the front yard, and the shrubs were badly overgrown. The effect was to make the house look homey – a proper house for a Great Aunt.

  Sara was already inside when John arrived. She spotted him as walked up the porch steps and ran up to greet him.

  “Daddy!”

  He gave her a huge hug that lifted her off the floor. For a second he had his little girl back in his arms, all blond hair and hugs. Setting her down he returned to the reality that his little girl was now a full-grown woman, and beautiful. It still felt great to be called “daddy”, even if they had both gotten older.

  “You look wonderful Sara, and it is so great to see you. Aunt Rebecca – thanks so much for having us to dinner.”

  “John, you know I’d have you over every night if you could manage it. Come on into the kitchen. Sara and I were just finishing the cooking.”

  The three spent dinner chatting about old times, catching up on news from Brad, and generally getting up to date. Their aunt was a bit less steady on her feet than before, but was sharp as ever and kept the dinner conversation enjoyable. John and Sara ate too much, but their Aunt’s cooking was so much better than anything available on base that it was hard to resist.

  The conversation naturally drifted to politics. Aunt Rebecca had been a professor of economics and brought a different perspective.

  “Aunt Rebecca, there are so many signs that the population of the earth was vastly higher in ancient times. What happened?”

  “We do not know for certain dear, but I can give you the latest theories. I try to keep up with my reading, even though I am getting a bit potty in my old age.”

  “Nonsense,” John stated flatly. “You are as sharp as ever. Please go on.”

  “As far as we can tell, the peak in human population coincided with a brief period when men exploited surface deposits of fuel. For approximately 250 years, energy was plentiful. So plentiful in fact that fuel could be used for many things that seem incredible today. For example, fuel was burned in a process to make a synthetic fertilizer. It was incredibly powerful stuff, and when combined mechanized farm equipment, allowed an increase in food production per farmer of over 100 times what it is today.”

  “100 times?” Sara was having a difficult time accepting that figure.

  “I know it sounds incredible, but the factor of 100 is conservative. It is difficult to imagine a situation where fuel was so plentiful that huge machines could be used in place of horses, where powered aircraft routinely flew, where fuel was used to create poisons to suppress insects, and where some forms of fuel were consumed as food. The result was that food production shot upward, allowing a huge increase in population. Estimates range from a peak of eight to twelve billion people once inhabited this small planet.”

  “Billion, or million?” John was also having trouble taking this all in.

  “Billions dear. They must have been packed like tomatoes in a crate. Of course, the availability of plentiful energy changed socio-ecological balance, favoring societies that consumed energy the most rapidly.”

  “Socio-ecologial balance?”

  “Oh, pardon me. That is professor-speak for an important concept. You see, the forces of evolution work at all levels. Ants survive not just because they are hardy little insects, but also because they evolved an advanced social order. Ant colonies compete with each other for resources. It is often the colony with the most adapted social system that triumphs, even if the individuals making up the colony are weaker.”

  “The same forces apply to humans. Many different cultures exist at any one time. The cultures that are most adapted to the current situation flourish while the less adapted wither. Of course, as the environment changes, the most adaptive behavior changes too, frequently more quickly than the culture can adapt.”

  “I did not follow that last bit.” Rebecca was enjoying this, but it was a lot of new information to digest.

  “Well, let’s use the age of fuel as an example. When fuel was plentiful, the cultures that consumed it with gusto quickly became very powerful. Their population grew rapidly, and they subjugated much of the rest of the world in their quest for additional fuel. As the surface fuels became exhausted, the relative cost of energy shot up enormously. The adaptive strategy of consuming fuel suddenly became a huge liability. The society could not afford to run its machines, make its fertilizer, or feed its people. Other societies, with behaviors that did not involve wanton consumption of fuel, suddenly became preeminent.”

  “So one culture starved, while the other grew in power?”

  “That was the result, but the process of adjustment was horrific. Going from billions to millions of people was not a smooth process, as the wreckage of ancient cities around us shows. I am very grateful I did not live in those times.”

  Aunt Rebecca took a sip of tea, and continued.

  “These socio-ecological forces are very much at work today. Our Madrin society was started based on a set of religious beliefs that saw mass consumption of resources as unethical. Madrin feelings about organic farming and abstinence from fuel consumption were not initially adaptive. However, the behavior patterns became adaptive as the environment changed. If today we could put aside our Madrin belief systems, we could burn alcohol to make a powered aircraft for John to fly. Of course, each time he flew it he would be starving ten families, based on the food needed to create that much fuel and purify it. Natural selection works out these balances over time, leading to the most adaptive behavior patterns triumphing in the long run. Madrin society has survived because we do not starve our people to make fuel.”

  “How do you explain the behaviors of the Gengon to the north?” John asked.

  “The Gengon behave in a way that is similar to a virus. The Gengon do not focus on creating food or shelter. They simply grasp that of their host, destroying their host in the process. It is just like a virus taking over a cell, and then killing the cell when it is through misusing the cell’s machinery. The virus could not survive alone, but at a low-level virus infections are stable as long as they don’t kill off all of their hosts. Their society must either continue to attack richer hosts, or evolve into something less malevolent.”

  Discussing the Gengon brought John back to real life. He needed to talk to Sara alone. After a brief pause, they started clearing the table and washing up. As they were finishing washing the dishes, John had to ask a favor of his Aunt.

  “Aunt Rebecca. I’m going to have to ask your forgiveness for being a bit rude tonight. I’ve got a military matter I need to discuss with Sara, and it would be best if you did not hear the conversation.”

  Aunt Rebecca paused for a moment, realizing how unusual it would be for John to have a military issue to discuss with her daughter. See did not press the issue.

  “I understand John. You two use the study. My hearing’s so bad that I couldn’t eavesdrop if I wanted to, and I don’t want to.”

  Sara was just as surprised as Aunt Rebecca, but said nothing. She and he father went into the study and closed the door.

  * * *

  “Sorry to spring this on you Sara, but there was no other way.”

  John got a sudden stab of guilt. Why am I putting my own daughter in danger? He paused to regain his resolve and then spoke quietly.

  “I’ve got a favor to ask of you, and it involves an unknown amount of risk to yourself. Believe me when I tell you that I hate having to ask you to do it, but there are a lot of lives at stake.”

  “It’s OK Dad. I’m a big girl now. Tell me what you need.”

  “Well… What I need is for you to see if you can find out if someone in Section 12 is intercepting our transmissions and sending them to the Gengon.”

  “Wow. You’re saying that Sec
tion 12 has a leak.”

  “Worse than that. Not only are our plans being sent north, but we suspect that false information is being seeded into the real intelligence to send our forces into traps.”

  “How do you know the security breach is here?”

  “We don’t, but we have eliminated the downstream possibilities, so the suspicions point upstream to Section 12. The key message traffic all flows through here. We have had both air and ground forces compromised, and both sets of traffic go through Section 12”

  John explained the details of the ambush and loss of Joe Callanto. He also went over what he knew about the two recent incidents with the ground forces running into ambushes. Sara listened carefully asked for clarification on a few points.

  “So what do you think Sara, can you help us?”

  “I can try. It would be a lot easier if I knew I could trust at least one other person. I guess everyone in Section 12, including the CO, is a suspect?”

  “I’m afraid you are on your own. What’s worse, we have no way to protect you inside of Section 12 without raising suspicions. We don’t have time to find another credible person and put them inside to back you up. If the Gengon find out what you are doing they will try to kill you, so you need to be very careful.”

  “How to I communicate with you Dad?”

  “Aren’t you involved with processing the images data from our reconnaissance flights?”

  “Sure, I work on image enhancement, particularly for the blurry images caused by turbulence.”

  “Can’t you embed a message into the images after you enhance them.”

  “Sure, by using stenography. It would have to be a short message, but it’s easy to shift the pixels in the image a bit to hide a message. Dad, you are starting to sound like a spook.”

  “I guess I am becoming a bit of a spy, but it can’t be helped. If you need to contact me, embed the message in the first image of any transmission back to base. The base CO will check the images and pass any messages on to me. The CO, one other man, and myself are the only people in the base that know we suspect something. The CO of Camp Williams, Lt. Commander Griffith is the only person here who knows what you are doing, so go to him if you feel in danger and have to abort the mission.”