Vaz 4: Invaders

by Laurence E. Dahners

  At first the genegineers couldn’t actually believe that the aliens living on this planet could survive with such poor DNA error correction. Then they’d realized that the radiation levels on the planet were extremely low—because, according to the physics specialists, the planet had an extremely powerful magnetosphere—which would make their poor error correction survivable. They suspected that these beings had originally come from a line of DNA that did form the organelles, but evolution had discarded the organelle because it wasn’t needed in their extremely benign environment.

  Nonetheless, it was a problem for the genegineers because the usual strategy for modification of an organism was to insert new genes into the correction organelle. By the very nature of the organelle’s function, genes found in it would get copied into the active nuclear DNA and thus modify the cell. Many of the viral strategies used by the rendas to modify or destroy other species depended on this highly conserved organelle. These viruses penetrated the cell membrane and attached themselves to the organelle, injecting their DNA within it.

  “And so,” concluded Genegineer First, “destroying this alien species is going to be very difficult.”

  Balan drew back, trying to look menacing rather than dismayed. “Are you saying that you can’t deal with these… beings?!”

  “No! No,” said the genegineer, looking flustered, “we’ll be able to do it, but we’ll have to study their viruses first. It would be better if we were near a population center. The alien specimens we’ve obtained here so far are… well, they’re not healthy, but they aren’t carrying many transmissible diseases.”

  “We’re not moving!” Balan growled. If the few natives they’d encountered here had been difficult to deal with, he didn’t want to imagine what it would be like dealing with tens of thousands of them in some population center.

  The genegineer looked a little alarmed, “I… I don’t think we can do it in the time window we have.” He looked back at Genegineer Second who’d come to the meeting as backup. Then the primary genegineer returned his gaze to Balan, “We’ll have to take specimens with us and return to Naust. There, with a much bigger team, we’ll be able to devise a number of possible solutions that can be dropped onto this planet when the second mission returns.”

  Balan restrained an impulse to attack the genegineer. “Okay,” she growled, “we will gather more specimens. But, you and your team will continue to work as hard as you can to devise a bioweapon we can leave behind. Something that will at least weaken these aliens. They’re much more dangerous than any other species we rendas have previously encountered.”

  Apprehensively, Balan prepared to contact Levon and give her the news. When the video image opened, Balan was shocked at the transformation in Levon’s appearance. She’s forced her dominance! Levon looked almost as large and muscular as Balan remembered the Prenaust looking when they’d been leaving Naust. Being alone in an isolated situation as the dominant renda always resulted in some increased bulk and muscularity, but when one expected to return to their original environment in proximity to an even more dominant renda, the changes were usually mild. Concentrated thoughts about dominance, in the absence of a more dominant female, could produce the kind of changes Balan was seeing on the screen, but if Levon returned to Naust in such a physical condition the Prenaust would kill her.

  Unless Levon killed the Prenaust…

  Balan forced her mind back to the issues. She began to explain to Levon that the genegineers did not expect to be able to produce a universally lethal virus quickly enough. “So, we’re planning to harvest a lot of specimens and bring them back to Naust with us so that a disease can be designed there. Then when we return to this system…”

  Levon had begun shaking her head. Now she interrupted, “There’s no reason for you to come with us if you haven’t finished your job there. Just stay and wipe out the aliens so the planet will be ready when the next mission arrives.”

  Startled, Balan said, “But…” She’d been about to say, “these aliens are aggressive and violent and startlingly capable,” but Levon had disconnected, again.

  Balan thought, We probably won’t survive until the next mission arrives!

  ***

  President Miles called her daily alien team meeting to order by clearing her throat. She nodded to Arvin Parque, one of her staff who’d been put in charge of assembling everyone’s information into a single coherent presentation.

  Parque indicated the big screen and began, “GSI’s discs were successful in traveling underwater to deliver observational assets to Tabuaeran. After the first one arrived successfully, we delivered forty more which gives us excellent ability to monitor the area directly around the aliens’ landing site and let us put some monitors on the rest of the island.” He nodded at the screen a second time, “This first part’s pretty distressing.” On the screen they watched in growing horror as the aliens—looking a little bit like short-muzzled pterodactyls, except they had arms; bigger, longer legs; and completely inadequate little wings—moved around the island. As they did so they brutally killed or captured people, dogs, cats, seagulls, reptiles… essentially anything that moved. They harvested specimens of various plants as well.

  When the video stopped, President Miles grimly said, “Well, we can’t let that go on.”

  Parque had paused at her comment, but she nodded for him to go on.

  Parque turned back to the screen and said, “In addition to audio and video monitoring, we delivered a couple of infrared laser imaging systems which produced these precision 3-D images of the aliens’ craft.” A rotating image appeared on the screen. “If there’s any need, we can now determine the dimensions of their ship with great accuracy.” He glanced around the room, but no one looked like they felt they had a need for the measurements. Continuing, he said, “We also delivered some radiation sensing instruments. To our astonishment, the aliens’ vessel is quite radioactive. Our NASA team believes that the aliens are using a nuclear thermal rocket engine to produce high accelerations such as they will need to take off again. Presumably they use their plasma engine for sustained thrusts when it’s out in space. For those of you not familiar, a nuclear thermal rocket uses a reactor to heat a working fluid to extremely high temperatures, exhausting it through a rocket nozzle to produce thrust. This is significantly more efficient than a chemical rocket, producing specific impulses nearly twice as high. As you’ll see in this image, there’s a hose extending from their ship into the ocean. We believe they’re using it to fill their propellant tanks with seawater.” He shrugged, “They may be using electrolysis to break the water and capturing only the hydrogen since liquid hydrogen makes a more efficient propellant.” He tilted his head in reaction to someone’s gesture, “Yes?”

  “Just how radioactive is this thing? I mean, are we talking about dangerous levels?”

  “Oh yes. They must have some shielding scheme that protects them while they’re inside the craft, but you really wouldn’t want to spend much time in its vicinity. It’d only take a few hours to accumulate a lethal dose.”

  Murmurs broke out around the table. Tiona heard the man who’d asked the question mutter, “You’ve gotta be shittin’ me!”

  The president was frowning, “In the video clip you showed us of the hose you think they’re filling the ship with, wasn’t one of the aliens standing near the rocket engines?”

  Parque grimaced, “Yeah, they’re surprisingly cavalier about hanging around them.”

  Some disbelieving exclamations broke out this time. The president said, “So you’re telling me these aliens are smart enough to travel here from another star, but they don’t know about radiation?!”

  “They’ve got to know about radiation, since they presumably built the reactor. It’s hard to believe that they don’t understand the dangers, but we don’t really know.”

  “What else do we know?”

  Parque said, “The NSA has evaluated Dr. Gettnor’s translation of some of the aliens’ transmissions. Us
ing it as a Rosetta Stone, they have been able to perform further translations that make sense. This suggests that Dr. Gettnor’s translation system is in fact accurate. Although General Cooper apparently chose the file to be translated at random, it’s been disquieting to learn that the aliens discussed extermination of the ‘intelligent species’ in our solar system in three different sections of that single file. They do apparently plan to do this with bio weapons.”

  President Miles frustratedly slammed her fist down on the table. “Dammit! We should never have let them land! Is the NSA translating the rest of their transmissions?”

  “Yes ma’am. Unfortunately, it’s very slow going because of the limited amount of material in the file translated by Dr. Gettnor.” Parque glanced at Tiona, “The NSA would find it extremely helpful if they could get Dr. Gettnor’s actual translation program, or barring that, they would like to get his translations of some additional files to give them a larger word dictionary.”

  Tiona sighed, “I’ll ask, but it’s impossible to know how he’ll respond.”

  Miles glanced off into the distance as she thought. “Send me the translations you’ve got so I can read them myself, but I don’t think it matters what any further translations might teach us. From the way they’ve behaved and what you’ve told me of their translations I think we need to be getting ready to fight.” She turned to the Secretary of State, “What did the Russians say about their atomic torpedo?”

  The man grimaced, “There’s no doubt they’re planning to make political hay out of the fact that we’re having to ask them. However, they do say they’ll come through. Unfortunately, it’ll take as much as a couple of weeks to get an asset in place that can fire one.”

  The president turned to Tiona, “And your asteroid?”

  “We got lucky there. It’s actually pretty close. We’ve got a seventy-five meter saucer pulling two Gs to get out to its present location. Once there, they’ll have to deflect it on to a new trajectory. If they run their thrusters at near emergency levels they’ll be able to deliver it on target five days from now.”

  Looking a little dubious, the president said, “And they’ll be able to hit the island?”

  Tiona shrugged, “Admittedly it’s an extremely complex problem in orbital dynamics, but that’s something AIs are really good at. We’ll have the saucer stay with it until the last possible moment in order to be as sure as we can that it’ll hit where we want it to. Also, in case you change your mind and need them to deflect it so it doesn’t hit.” Tiona frowned, “But the closer it gets, the lower the possibility that we’d be able to deflect it meaningfully.”

  The president glanced around the table, “Anybody know what’s going to happen to the uranium or whatever’s in the aliens’ reactor when we drop an asteroid on it?”

  There were a lot of shaking heads. One of the NASA guys volunteered, “We can hope that a direct impact drives it deep into the crater. I’d guess that a miss will probably splash it around.” He shrugged, “But I don’t think anybody really knows.”

  It sounded like the president was speaking to herself when she said, “Hard to imagine how it could spread it around worse than blowing up a nuclear reactor with an atomic bomb.” She turned her eyes on General Cooper, “We need to be working on a way to get the rest of the locals off that island, not just before we blow up the island, but before the aliens grab any more of them.”

  “Yes ma’am,” was all Cooper said.

  The president looked around the table, “Final question. Can we rescue the people they’ve already captured?”

  People glanced uncomfortably at one another all around the table, obviously troubled by the horrific ethical dilemma. However, no one spoke.

  The president said, “Anybody?”

  Looking reluctant, Cooper said, “If they’re designing a bio weapon and we break in and rescue someone who’s infected with it, bringing it home…” he trailed off.

  “Yeah, yeah,” the president said, “I get it.” She sighed, “I don’t like it, but I get it. The good of the many…” After a pause, she said, “Let’s don’t let them catch anyone else though.”

  As everyone was getting up to leave, the president said, “Oh, and let’s get some advisers from the CDC and the military bio-weapons programs on this team.”

  ***

  Tiona descended the stairs into her dad’s lab, wondering if the entire world could depend on something as mundane as her personal interactions with her father. Just thinking about it roiled her stomach. She tried to reassure herself that the translation he’d already done was enough to convict the aliens on their intentions, but she couldn’t stop worrying about the aliens’ technical advantage. What if translations of the aliens’ encyclopedia could neutralize those advantages, but she simply couldn’t even talk to her father, much less convince him to give up the program? What if NSA never made much more progress on translations despite having a partial translation dictionary?

  When she entered the basement her dad turned toward her and his eyes rose high enough that she knew he could tell who it was. “Hi Dad,” she said quietly.

  He nodded, though he didn’t say anything. She thought, in his own strange way, he looked apprehensive.

  For a moment she was once again tempted to say something inane like, “How’s it going?” But such verbal fillers had always been wasted on her father. After a minute she said, “I’ve just come from a meeting with the president and the team of her people who’re helping decide what to do about the aliens.”

  Vaz didn’t say anything, but Tiona thought he might’ve given her one of his little micro nods.

  “They really appreciated getting your translation of that file. No one else’s been able to translate anything by the aliens so that was the first evidence they’d gotten of the aliens’ intention to wipe out the human race.” She sat down on a rolling stool and scooted over next to him. She put her arms around his muscular shoulders. It felt like hugging a bag of stones. Resting her head against his deltoid, she said, “I really appreciated it too. Thanks.” Though she wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do, she sat and held him a little longer. He was uncomfortable with hugs, but she needed one. After a moment, he clumsily patted her on the knee. Tiona let go, then said, “Now that the president understands what the aliens are like, she’s getting the country mobilized to fight them. Unless they manage to release their virus before we can destroy them and their ship, your translation just might save everyone on Earth…”

  Vaz still didn’t say anything, but Tiona had a feeling that he’d been listening. She took a breath, wondering whether it was a good idea, but then finally ventured, “It could help a lot if the NSA could get your translation program. They’d like to search through the transmissions to understand the alien’s technology better. They’re hoping to find some weaknesses.”

  Tiona set beside her father for another ten minutes, hoping for reaction but not getting one. Finally she said goodbye and departed with a heavy heart. I failed again, and so many people’s lives could hang in the balance.

  Her car was lifting off the lawn at the farm when her AI said, “You have a message from your father. It has an extremely large file attached.”

  Tiona’s eyes flashed up to her HUD where the file delivery icon was flashing. The file was only labeled, “XLTR.” Praying that that meant “translator” she said, “Show me the message.”

  This message had four words. “They have many weaknesses.”

  ***

  Tiona walked into the president’s daily alien briefing thinking how unlikely she would have considered it five years ago that she might be flying to Washington DC and back on a daily commute. To meet the president, no less.

  Parque cleared his throat and said, “Let me bring you up to date. A team of Navy SEALs removed the last of the Gilbertese from Tabuaeran last night.” He glanced around the table, then said, “We should be proud of the planning and coordination as well as the execution of this mission. Satellite reconn
aissance people as well as those monitoring the now hundreds of cameras that have been flown to Tabuaeran on discs were able to identify the islanders’ locations by observing for movement over the last forty-eight hours. The SEALs were delivered close to shore by submarine, moved in quickly to offer to remove the islanders, taking with them a video message from the president of Kiribati. To be honest, after seeing what had happened to the other people on the island, the Gilbertese didn’t need to be convinced by their president. They already wanted to leave. The SEALs swam the natives out to the submarine using snorkel gear. We don’t believe the aliens took any notice.”

  After awaiting a moment to see if there were any questions, Parque continued. “Our friends from Russia are working to deliver one of their atomic torpedoes to the mid-Pacific. They apparently already have an asset capable of firing it in the Pacific and expected to be on site in eight days. However, GSI will be able to deliver a forty meter diameter metallic asteroid in three more days. Assuming we proceed with it, its mass of 220,000 metric tons will strike at a velocity of ten kilometers per second, releasing about three megatons of energy. If it’s on target, the heat should sterilize the area and the only radiation would come from the fissionable materials in the aliens’ reactor.”

  Someone asked, “What about tsunamis? Those Pacific atolls are really low. If this asteroid generates a tsunami it could completely swamp neighboring islands.”

  Parque looked down at his notes, “The nearest populated island is Kiritimati, or Christmas Island. We’ll warn them of course, but it’s 300 kilometers from Tabuaeran so it should take about an hour and a half for the tsunami to reach them. By that point the wave should only be about two feet high. Fortunately, GSI considered this aspect and they’re delivering the asteroid just before low tide. A two foot rise shouldn’t be a big threat unless they miss their target and the asteroid hits closer to Kiritimati.”