by David Capps
Andropov started writing English versions of the German labels on the console. “That should give you enough to take off and land this thing.”
Dave touched a circle under the word RAMP. The ramp slowly closed. He touched it again and the ramp opened. “Okay. That was easy enough.” He touched the bottom of a tall rectangle and slid his finger up a little. The whirring sound already coming from under the floor increased slightly.
Jake noticed a dull white glow to the outer surface of the saucer that wasn’t there before.
“Vertical,” Dave said, as he slid his finger up a different rectangle. The saucer began to rise and then stopped about a foot above the ground. “Why won’t it go any higher?”
Jake looked over at the ramp. “The door’s open. Wouldn’t you want that closed before we take off?”
Dave touched the circle for the ramp. It closed and the saucer rose into the air. Navigational markers appeared as red lines against the light blue background of the images outside the saucer. A large circle lit up in the center of the console revealing the contour of the area around them in fine wavy lines.
“It looks almost three dimensional,” Honi commented.
Dave read the rest of the words Andropov had marked on the console, and slid his finger down on the vertical control. The saucer settled down on the ground. He touched the circle for the ramp and the door opened.
“Get your team. We’re going home.”
* * *
Jake, Stafford, Ken and Andropov sat buckled into a harness on the circular bench seat along with the rest of the President’s Unit. Dave and Honi sat in the two seats in the middle of the control console.
“I’ve cleared us with Super Hornet Fighter Squadron 113 so they don’t open fire on us,” Dave said. “We have a carrier off the east coast, not too far from D.C. where I can drop your team. I’ll leave the rest of my unit there, as well. This saucer has an appointment with a secret base in Nevada.”
“Area 51?” Honi asked.
“Nope,” Dave replied. “Way too much public attention there. We have another base for this baby.”
The ramp closed, the saucer lifted slowly into the air. Dave touched a circle. Honi leaned over to read the label. “Landing struts,” Dave said. As soon as they were ten feet off the ground red images appeared around the walls and on the center circle of the control console.
“What are those?” Honi asked.
“Enemy aircraft. Well, not our enemy, their enemy.”
The saucer accelerated up for thirty thousand feet and paused. Dave touched the edge of the navigation circle in the center of the control console at the far edge and slid his finger around to the right. The saucer rotated so they were facing north. He slid his finger up the speed control rectangle. A white glow filled the passenger section and the saucer took off. Honi could feel the pull of the acceleration, but it wasn’t bad. It was more like a commercial plane taking off.
“How fast are we going?” she asked.
Dave looked at the console. “It’s in kilometers, so if my conversion is correct, something on the order of five thousand miles an hour.”
“What?” Honi shouted.
“You want to go faster?”
Honi grinned.
“Take your finger and slide it up here.”
She touched the control rectangle and slid her finger up. She could feel the acceleration again. “How fast now?”
“Around eight thousand miles an hour.”
Honi looked at the large navigation circle. The terrain was passing below them at a smooth pace; fast, but smooth. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to a small green dot that had appeared at the bottom of the navigation circle. It was closing in on them rapidly.
“Uh oh. That’s got to be the other saucer.”
“The one from the battle last night?”
“Probably. I don’t know how many saucers they have around here, but that would be my guess.”
“What are we going to do?” Honi asked, tension clear in her voice.
“Touch that circle over on your left,” Dave said. “The one that says ‘shield.’”
Honi touched the circle. Nothing happened.
“Built in IFF,” Dave said.
Honi looked at him, her question clear on her face.
“Identification, Friend or Foe. Remember how all the Super Hornets around us showed up in red?”
“Yeah.”
“Red for foe, green for friend.” The other saucer was now alongside them, matching their speed. Dave touched the green dot for the other saucer to see what would happen. Honi heard talking in what sounded like German.
Andropov leaned forward and whispered, “They’re asking what you’re doing.”
He appeared to be listening carefully, and then spoke in German, “Ich habe anweisung bekommen das Ich vor der katastrophe mich auf einen anderen standort zu begeben habe.”
“What did you tell them?” Jake asked softly.
“I told them I received orders to move to a new location before the catastrophe,” he whispered.
Honi heard the response in German. It didn’t sound angry, just confused.
“Nein,” Andropov said in German. “Ich konnte einsteigen ohne das Ich gesehen wurde.”
“Meaning?” Jake asked quietly.
“I said no, I was able to board without being seen,” Andropov whispered again.
She heard more German words.
Andropov answered in German, “Ich weiss nicht, Ich folge nur den befehl.” He looked over at Honi, a worried expression on his face. “I said I don’t know,” he said quietly, “I’m just following orders.”
“You think that’s going to work?” Ken whispered.
She heard quiet mumblings from the other saucer, and then the sound stopped. Dave touched the green dot again.
“That’s not good,” Stafford said.
“Are they going to shoot at us?” Honi asked.
“Only if they can disengage the IFF system,” Dave replied. “We can turn off the IFF on our fighters. My guess is that they can, too. We have to find that control!”
Dave searched the labels on the console, but not everything had been translated. “Come on, it has to be here. What would they call it?”
“Try anerkennen or anerkennung,” Andropov said.
“The light for the other saucer just turned from green to red!” Honi shouted.
“Anerkennung!” Dave said, tapping the circle under the label.
“Shield!” Dave shouted. “That one.”
Honi tapped the circle Dave had pointed at. A red ring appeared around the interior dome of the saucer.
“Now tap the red dot!”
Honi tapped the red dot that represented the other saucer. A white light flashed from the edge of their saucer toward the other saucer, but it was met in the center by another white flash from the enemy craft.
“Shoot high!” Dave shouted.
Honi tapped the console just above the red dot as Dave plunged the saucer down. They could see the saucer in the display on the interior wall. The other saucer shot upward and was hit by the light flash. The shot from the other saucer grazed the top of the dome above them. Dave maneuvered their saucer under the enemy craft while Honi kept tapping the red dot. The light flashes impacted the underside of the other saucer, but nothing appeared to be damaged. The other saucer was firing back, but Dave’s unexpected move had caught them aiming in the wrong place. Dave changed course again. Honi kept tapping the red dot as it moved on the console display, and the light flashes kept hitting the other saucer. There was still no apparent damage to either saucer.
“Hold up, hold up,” Dave said. “Our speed is decreasing and from the image of the other saucer on the wall, our shots are getting weaker, too.”
“So what’s going wrong?”
Just then a light flash from the other saucer blasted in through the side wall, sending sharp metal fragments into the passenger section. Air started screaming out of the hole maki
ng it hard to breath. Dave pulled back on the thruster and the elevation control. The saucer slowed and dropped rapidly, breaking away from the enemy craft. Honi felt light headed, even as she breathed harder, the oxygen was being sucked out of the hole in the saucer. As they dropped below 15,000 feet, fresh air began rushing back in through the hole.
“So what the hell happened?” Honi asked, still trying to catch her breath.
“I think weapons, shields and thrusters all run off the same power system,” Dave said. “We need to let them recharge!”
The saucer hovered in the air as Dave frantically searched the displays on the console.
“Yes. See this indicator over here? Available power is rising.”
“They’re coming after us!” Honi shouted. “What are we going to do?”
“We need time to recharge the weapon system.” Dave turned off the shield and waited.
The enemy saucer dove in the distance and commenced an attack run at them.
“They’re coming in!” Honi shouted. “We’re sitting ducks!”
“That’s exactly what I want them to think,” Dave replied. He watched the available power rise. “Just a little bit more.”
The enemy craft was streaking toward them at high speed. From the trajectory, Honi realized the other saucer would pass to their right, firing at them in the process.
“Shields on now!” Dave shouted. “Hang on!” He moved the saucer directly across the path of the oncoming craft, which instead of firing was maneuvering, trying to avoid a collision.
“Fire now!”
Honi tapped the red dot and a bright flash of light struck the other saucer on the lower surface, sending bits of debris into the air as it sped by. Dave touched the control for cloaking and a yellow ring appeared next to the red ring around the interior of the dome.
“I think their sensors can still pick up where we are,” Dave said.
Honi looked at the available power indicator. The power was dropping slowly. “Cloaking draws a lot of power.”
Dave glanced at the indicator. “It does. Let’s give it a minute and see what they do.”
The other saucer reversed direction and came at them again.
“The cloaking doesn’t hide us from them, so there’s no point in having it on.” He turned the cloaking off. The yellow ring around the inner dome disappeared. The enemy craft was making another run at them, this time keeping a little more distance in between.
“Don’t fire until they’re directly to our side. Shortest distance.”
“Right,” Honi said.
Just before she tapped the red dot, the other saucer fired. Another hole blasted through the wall of their saucer, injuring one of Dave’s men. Honi tapped the red dot and the flash of light impacted the other saucer, sending more debris into the air.
“Damn. That went right through the shield!”
Dave spun the saucer around, increased the thruster control and took off in pursuit of the other saucer. The rush of air through the open holes made a deafening roaring sound.
“Obviously we didn’t hit anything vital,” Dave shouted over the noise. “Anybody have any idea where the most vulnerable place is on that thing?”
“Try the dome on the underside!” Andropov shouted. “That’s where the main power source is located.”
Honi looked at the image of the other saucer on the inner wall of their craft. There was a bright red circle in the center of the craft. The default aiming point must be dead center, she thought.
“That must be the targeting point,” Honi said. “How do I move it?”
Dave was glancing around the control console. “I don’t know!” he shouted.
“Try richtenpunkt or richtenzeiger!” Andropov shouted.
“Richtenzeiger! I found it!”
She moved her finger inside the circle under the label. The targeting circle moved on the image of the other saucer. Honi settled the bright red circle on the side of the dome under the saucer where the power source was located.
They were gaining on the other vehicle rapidly. Dave dove below the other saucer and Honi tapped the red dot. The other saucer bolted suddenly to the right, leaving the impact of the light flash glancing off the under-side edge of the dome. The other saucer fired and again blasted another hole through the side of their craft. Pieces of light gray metal exploded through the inner room. One of the fragments struck Honi in right the shoulder, embedding itself in her muscle.
Dave adjusted his course and closed again on the other saucer, diving under to the left. Honi fired at the same time as the other saucer. This time they were hit with a glancing blow and the other saucer took a direct hit on the underside of the dome as it turned sharply in front of them. The bright white glow on the surface of the other saucer blinked on and off quickly and then went out. The other saucer tipped to the side and began falling toward the mountains below. Dave and Honi watched the tumbling craft as it fell. It crashed into the rocky side of a mountain.
Honi reached over and pulled the small piece of metal from her shoulder. She winced as it came out. She looked around. There wasn’t any place to dispose of it, so she tucked it into a vest pocket. “How did you know what to do?” she asked Dave.
“Well, when we fired at them from fighter jets, they always jumped up and went over the incoming missiles. Those missiles climb slowly, but another saucer doesn’t have the same limitations. That’s why I went down and under.”
“And the rest?”
“Observe and adapt. Unofficial motto of my unit.”
“Well, it certainly worked.”
The President’s Unit medic unbuckled from his harness, came over to Honi, cut the sleeve off her shirt and wrapped her wound.
“Thanks.”
The medic attended to two other members of the President’s Unit who had also been struck by debris, and then strapped back into his harness.
Dave guided the saucer north over Puerto Rico. When Bermuda appeared on the navigational display he turned northwest.
“What do you think the little yellow dots are?” Honi asked.
Dave looked at the navigational display. He shrugged. “Commercial aircraft, maybe?”
“Could they see us?”
“Good question. We’re coming into US airspace. We don’t want to stir things up too much. NORAD will have us on radar soon, if they don’t already. Activate the cloaking again.”
She touched the circle and a yellow ring appeared around the dome in the ceiling again.
“So we’re no longer on radar?”
Dave smiled back at her. “That is my assumption.”
“I’ve got to get one of these for myself. This is just so cool.”
“Isn’t it?” They cruised northwest for a few more minutes.
Dave pulled back on the speed and started dropping in altitude. “I hope everybody got their orders straight. Touch the ‘cloak’ circle again.”
She did and the yellow ring around the dome went off.
Red dots began to appear in the navigation circle, some closing in on them.
“Moment of truth,” Dave said.
Honi noted how close the red dots were getting to them. “Our fighters?”
Dave nodded. “Don’t touch any red dots. They’re friends–it’s just that this system won’t think so.”
He slowed the saucer even more. Two Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets pulled alongside of them. A blinking white ring appeared around the red dot on the right.
“Radio contact,” Honi said confidently.
“There’s your communications circle.”
Honi touched the circle with her left forefinger.
“Unidentified craft, this is Navy Bulldog Four. Do you copy?”
“Roger, Bulldog Four,” Honi answered. “This is Amazon one. Do you copy?”
Dave chuckled. “Amazon. I should have guessed.”
“Affirmative Amazon one, you are cleared to land on the forward flight deck of the USS George H. W. Bush, ahead at your one o’clo
ck position.”
“Affirmative Bulldog Four, and thank you,” Honi said.
“You’re welcome, ma’am,” Bulldog Four replied.
Dave carefully guided the saucer over the deck of the aircraft carrier, deployed the landing struts and slowly settled down on the flat surface. He opened the ramp. Everyone, except Dave and Andropov, unbuckled and walked out onto the flight deck.
A navy officer approached. “I understand you need to get back to Washington?”
“We do,” Honi replied.
“Choppers are over here, ma’am,” he led the way.
“Where’s Andropov?” Honi asked
“He’s going with the saucer,” Jake replied. “General Davies’ orders.”
“Of course.”
As soon as everyone on the flight deck was clear of the saucer, the ramp closed, the outside surface turned a brilliant glowing white and it lifted off into the air. It rose quickly and then it streaked west and was gone from sight.
* * *
Peter Steinmetz reviewed the images and data from the SOHO satellite and cross referenced the data with several other satellites. This was the most critical step in the process. He had to make sure everything had gone according to plan. He had tried to contact the reflector satellite three times this morning without success. That was troubling. With all of the EMP and radiation protection built into the satellite control system, it should have responded. At least the world-wide fractal computer network was working. It seemed a little slower than usual. That was curious as well.
Steinmetz was responsible for activating the evacuation order. The five other people at the top of the command structure wouldn’t have a clear view of the sun and the solar storm during this narrow window, so the final decision fell to him. The entire evacuation process was automated within the computer system in Bolivia. All it needed was his authorization code.
His military experience had taught him that during the execution of any plan of this size, things will inevitably happen that you didn’t anticipate, and some important events that you needed may not happen. That is simply the nature of battlefield conditions, so the loss of communications with the reflector satellite was annoying, but within acceptable parameters.