The First Exoplanet

by T. J. Sedgwick

  When the Chinese and Russians learnt of the planned Special Forces mission to deny the aliens use of the FTL drive technology the only objection had been that they wanted their own teams sent there too. This was not a plan the WGA could entertain. It would be hard enough to run a mission with an existing team of Special Forces that had trained and fought together. Trying to coordinate a joint task force of WGA, Russian and Chinese soldiers was a step too far. The junior partners had reluctantly accepted this, but insisted on full information sharing from the mission. They were desperate to learn as much about planet Gaia and the Avendano system as they could. Such strategic and tactical information would be gold when it came to future expansion, trade and possible conflicts. As ever, information was power, and the Russians and Chinese were doing all they could to avoid being cut out of humanity’s future in the habitable star system.

  Their shorter-term game was, in many ways, the same as the aliens’: to get their hands on the FTL technology. But the Russians and Chinese had no way of communicating with them, let alone trusting and allying with them. But all sides knew something of the skulduggery and espionage going on behind the scenes to learn about faster-than-light travel. It was the key to unlocking the wider galaxy and beyond, but it still had its limitations. Firstly, more habitable planets would need to be found and, second, the technology would need to be refined. It was increasingly inaccurate the further the transit distance was; so much so that jumping the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy some 100,000 light years across could result in ending up in the wrong star system altogether. Or more likely somewhere in interstellar space. It also seemed that the further the jump, the greater the stress placed on the drive, imposing a practical limit on cumulative distance before the drive failed. Such a situation would mean the probe or ship could end up marooned in a far-off region of space with no means of getting back or communicating with Earth within a reasonable time span.

  October 11, 2061 Special Space Service HQ, Hereford, UK

  The United Kingdom’s Special Space Service was formed a decade earlier during the second Cold War when hostilities in space looked all too likely. As it turned out, space had increasingly become the domain of the WGA with the Chinese and Russians preferring to concentrate on space denial weapons systems, intelligence and cyberwarfare capabilities. A single squadron of the SSS was officially on the books but with a heavy crossover of men to the SAS and SBS. Specialist SSS training had been maintained since its formation. It consisted of parts of the SAS and SBS regime combined with zero-g small-squad warfare, close-quarters combat on, and operation of, space assets, extended space habitation and UHALO—Ultra High Altitude Low Opening insertions.

  The Alliance chain of command had endorsed the plan and the SSS had been assigned the mission. Codenamed Operation Rapid Denial, the mission was to deny the aliens the FTL-technology that would give them access to Earth and the stars. A patrol of four men and two humanoid battle droids would go to the distant world of Gaia for the mission.

  General Fred McIver, Commander of the WGA Space Force, stepped out of the driverless electric car outside the SSS facility on a rainy autumn morning in Hereford, England. Three other uniformed Space Force officers formed the entourage on his trip from the US to check on final preparations for Operation Rapid Denial. Major-General James Hadley, Commander of the SSS and Captain Chris Buick greeted McIver and his men at the main entrance, shaking hands but keen to get their guests out of the dreary October weather. The two story, red brick building stood on the British Army’s Hereford base and was home to the SSS. Behind it was a large warehouse-shaped structure containing many of the functions that could not be housed in the red brick admin block in front. Over the double entrance doors hung a metre-high insignia of a vertical dagger encircled by an orbital ring with a small generic spacecraft shape—similar to that found on the defunct NASA badge. It bore the motto of the Special Space Service: ‘Fortitude in Stellis’ or ‘Bravery Among the Stars’.

  “Is it ever sunny here?” McIver asked Hadley with a smile and mischief in his eyes. The two had met once before on a previous visit to Hereford and it had been raining on that occasion too.

  “We’re British Army, General. We’ve spent most of our lives in the rain,” replied Hadley in his clipped received-English. Hadley was a small, red-headed Englishman from Yorkshire who’d long since lost the distinctive accent. Although in his early fifties, his wiry frame and balding head deceived when it came to his still impressive physical strength and agility. His sharp wit and dry sense of humour went down well among officers and their men alike. He was a decorated veteran of several successful SAS operations and had spent time embedded with the WGA Space Force on the Citadel, on one of the Moon’s industrial complexes and on an asteroid mining outpost. All of these facilities needed protecting and there had been a constant military presence on many of them since the second Cold War had begun.

  “This is Captain Chris Buick,” said Hadley, introducing his squadron leader to the three officers with McIver. They shook hands, the handsome, tanned Buick nodding to each in turn with a white-toothed smile that wouldn't have looked out of place on a politician’s face. He would lead the patrol of three other men and two battle droids into the unknown in just a few days’ time. Captain Buick had been part of direct action missions in Russia, the Middle East and South America over the past ten years, earning a Victoria Cross and Distinguished Service Order amongst a raft of lesser awards.

  “The troops are just finishing a debrief on a weapons training exercise so we might as well take you through to the arsenal out the back,” said Hadley, leading the way through the polished parquet-floored corridor and straight through the admin block to the large, warehouse-like structure behind. The arsenal was what they called the combined armoury and stores with a weapons and equipment testing facility part of the setup. Photo portraits of notable past commanders of the service adorned the walls. A young, female lieutenant stepped aside saluting as the two British and four Space Force officers passed two-by-two. Captain Buick scanned his retina and index finger simultaneously with only a slight pause as the system checked its facial recognition database to make its three-point verification. The heavy-duty sliding security door receded into the wall with the whir of an electric motor somewhere unseen. When McIver saw what awaited them in the Arsenal he understood why they had the security they did.

  To the right, laid out on three rows of long, white benches was a treasure trove of equipment that looked like something out of a Bond movie. On the floor ahead and to the left were two taped off areas of warehouse floor. On the far left and right were the white, three storey facades of internal buildings with windows looking out on to the main warehouse space. There was no sign of a quartermaster or anyone else present. Captain Buick began to explain.

  “Gentlemen,” said Buick, grinning, “as you see we don’t have a Q like in James Bond. Here in the triple-S we like our soldiers to understand their kit inside out, not some guy who’s gonna be fifteen light years away when we use it!”

  The Space Force officers appreciated the humour with a few chuckles and nods indicating the trivial enlightenment of Bond’s folly that Buick had pointed out.

  He continued, “Knowing your kit inside out can save your life or those of your men. I can tell you what it all does and how it works. Just don't ask me to explain the fundamental physics behind an FTL drive!”

  “There aren’t very many people on the planet who can do that, Captain,” commented McIver.

  “That’s planet Earth you're referring to I suppose, General?” asked Major-General Hadley mischievously. “We hope the number of individuals on planet Gaia is still zero.”

  “Ha! Yes, James, and we want to keep it that way,” replied McIver convivially, eyes smiling.

  “Let’s have a look at weapons first, Captain,” said Hadley, nodding over to the first of the three benches to the group’s right.

  On the first sat a gun rack containing ten mean-looking battle rifles
.

  Picking up one of the weapons, Buick turned to face his guests, pointing the gun to the floor with his left hand as he pointed out its features with his right. “This is the HK750 Battle Rifle. Ninety percent nano-carbon; very light but well balanced. Selector switch: safety, single shot, semi, full-auto. Takes the smart 7.62 mm in a sixty-round double column magazine. Single-shot grenade launcher,” he said, pointing to the lower fore-end of the gun.

  “Iron sights on this at the moment, but we’ll install adaptive-telescopic sights for the mission. These talk to the battlesuit network and respond to eye movement and headset thought commands. The smart-rounds can be used as regular rounds or programmed to explode at a set-distance past cover. So if the enemy is behind a wall we can sight the wall, select the delay and then open fire. The really clever bit is that the rounds ‘know’ where you’re shooting relative to the wall. So if you were shooting at the enemy taking cover to the right of a doorway you’d sight the range to the wall on the right of the doorway, then fire into the doorway just to his left. The round would explode rightwards, directing the hail of shrapnel towards the enemy rather than omni-directionally like older models. It can still be set omni-directionally too though, if you so choose.”

  “On the ground it’s a real benefit and saves ammo,” said Hadley as McIver nodded, finding the up-close look at their dangerous toys a refreshing change from meetings and reports.

  “I was expecting to see a plasma rifle or one of those particle beams the aliens have,” joked McIver.

  “Yes... Well, the plasma rifles on offer are not reliable and the confinement chambers are prone to going ‘pop’. So we’re sticking with tried and tested at the moment,” said Hadley. “Show them the shoulder-mounted system, Captain,” he instructed.

  They moved to the next bench. Lined up there were six shoulder-mounted weapons systems. They had an ergonomically shoulder-curved square base, a ball-jointed monopod stand and what looked like a small missile pod array with a three by five configuration. On top of the missile array was a single bore housed in a curved triangular body, a little like the gable on the front of a house.

  “This is the Shoulder-Mounted Weapons System, or shoulder pod for short. It bolts onto the battlesuit that we’ll look at later and contains fifteen 11 mm missiles with high-explosive warheads. They can be shot ballistically, or seek IR or visual signatures. So, for example, if we preloaded a target’s face or an image of an enemy vehicle then fired one off within thirty seconds of a match then the missile would seek its target. We can also target with the contact lens display that we’ll be wearing,” said Buick.

  “What’s the slightly larger barrel on top of the missile pod?” asked McIver, pointing to it with his index finger.

  “We don’t have plasma or particle beams but what we do have is a pretty powerful pulse laser,” explained Buick. “That thing will fire all day long and is good for hands free and covering fire when we don’t have time to be raising the battle rifle. It can cover you with a fair degree of autonomy. It can also be set to watch your back, swivelling on the ball joint to face behind when you’re not sure if you've bypassed enemy stragglers. Sweep mode is similar, except that it rotates three-sixty searching for targets. And just like the early machine guns avoiding the biplane’s prop, it doesn’t fire into the wearer’s neck before you ask!”

  “Limitations?” asked McIver.

  “Not good in smoky or foggy conditions, scatters the laser light. Also, certain surfaces can absorb and dissipate or reflect it. But damned useful though,” said Buick. “So here are the demolition charges we’ll be using on Santa Maria when we find her,” he continued, pointing to the round, hockey-puck sized devices lined up next to the shoulder-pods. They had a timer dial on the top and three buttons on the round edge.

  “They’ll adhere to almost anything and once the timer’s set they’re tamper resistant. One of these will obliterate Santa Maria if placed in or on her. So that means we’ve got to locate the probe, obviously, if we’re going to use these demo charges. Which is where this baby comes in…” said Buick, pointing to a brushed metal cuboid the size of a briefcase but with no visible features whatsoever.

  “Portable nuke, gentlemen. Don't worry, it’s not armed; although there’s no way to tell by looking at it. We’ll only need to get this within half a kilometre for it to do its work, depending on obstacles et cetera. But five-hundred metres is the official range within a bunker-type environment. It’ll devastate a much wider area in the open. We’re carrying only one of these as a fall-back in case we can’t get close to the target or otherwise destroy it.”

  “Yes, we feel it’s not a good policy to start nuking the aliens, even after their hostility and stonewalling,” said Hadley.

  “Indeed,” agreed McIver

  Buick continued, “It can only be armed and the timer set remotely either via a battlesuit or another compatible comms device. One of these is the EQP comms method, which the Russians have kindly enlightened us of.”

  “Ah yes, the EQP – Entangled Quantum Particle – transceiver. The story behind how we got the Russians to give up that one is interesting. The FBI recovered one that a Russian spy had left behind, so we had a working model anyway. The Ruskies knew it’d only be a matter of time before we worked it out and they owe us a few favours after what they’ve done. Anyway, we’ll leave that for now... Please continue, Captain,” said McIver, motioning with his hand to move it along.

  “It’s quite amazing really when you think about it. Let’s go over to the last bench over here,” Buick said, directing the other five officers towards the place where the EQP transceiver sets sat.

  “These are EQP transceivers. For the first time we’ll have real-time comms between Earth and the Avendano system. The bandwidth is limited – text and stills-picture data only – but a hell of a sight better than having to transit messenger probes daily!” exclaimed Buick. The transceivers were basically a pair of small boxes that would hook into one of their battlesuits on Gaia at one end and into the Hereford-based SSS computer network at the other. There were two sets: primary and backup pairs.

  “Let’s go and have a look at the FTL gate now, Captain,” said General Hadley, turning around and facing the taped off area of floor at the rear of the warehouse. There, amongst other assorted kit for the mission, was a closed metal case like an extra-large suitcase. Buick crouched down and undid the two clasps revealing, on both sides of the open case, a series of curved pieces of light-coloured metal with evenly spaced holes around the inside edge. In the centre of the top half of the case, also sitting in high-density black foam, was a metal box, which took up most of the remaining space. It had a number of switches and indicator lights as well as a round opening at either end of a similar diameter to the cross-section of the metal pieces.

  “This is the portable FTL Gate. Easier to assemble than an Ikea bunk bed, but just as useful,” joked Buick.

  “You put the curved metal sections together to form a hoop with a short break in it. That hoop is the FTL gate. Once the hoop’s a hoop, you simply slot the two ends into the box. The power comes from the miniaturised fusion pack over there. It basically creates the same jump tunnel that the probes use, but smaller and only for a limited time of a few minutes. Long enough for our exfiltration hopefully, otherwise we’ll have a long wait on Gaia,” said Buick, managing a fatalistic grin as he thought of that unwelcome outcome. Spending months or years evading aliens on a largely unknown planet wasn’t even a triple-S soldier's idea of fun.

  “The modified Vipers our boys are being sent in won’t have their own FTL drives and anyway won’t be landing on Gaia—they’re not designed for planetary entry. That’ll be via UHALO jump with the Vipers just burning up in the upper atmosphere,” explained General Hadley, referring to the Ultra High Altitude, Low Opening jump onto Gaia.

  McIver was in his element learning about these gadgets, with his entourage of Space Force officers expressing similar body language, while leaving most of
the talking to their boss. But to the SSS these were utilitarian instruments and life savers.

  To the left hand side another taped off area of floor held a row of fifteen small metal cases with handles, about the size of a house brick. Buick walked over to one and picked it up, opening the little case to reveal a small, winged reconnaissance drone inside.

  “This is the Hummingbird recon drone,” said Buick, angling the case slowly so that his guests could get a good look. “No prizes for what it’s modelled on,” he continued, looking at the matt-black mechanised bird. Its size and shape were similar to those of a hummingbird, but it had no bill and no head as such. Its body was not as rounded as its namesake’s and it was more like a curved, irregular cuboid. The wings were also black. There were a few pinhole openings distributed at various places around the body and a pair of tiny lenses where the head would be on the biological version.

  “Would you like to see it in action?” asked Buick.

  “Sure,” responded McIver, keenly.

  Buick put the case down, still open, and skipped over to the ground-floor door below the internal rooms on the left hand side of the building. He returned a short while later with a headset. He knelt down and picked out the Hummingbird, donned the headset and rested the Hummingbird’s four feet – which protruded only slightly from its more-or-less flat base – on his outstretched hand.