The Resolute

by G. Weldon Tucker

  Olga asked, “What will they do when they find out?”

  “How will they find out, Olga? You are not going to tell them, are you?”

  She turned beet red, claiming, “Of course not! But the question remains. What kind of retaliation can we expect?”

  General Washington smiled, calming her down, then said, “They will attempt to systematically take them out. They have only a small percentage of our nuclear inventory. Everything is pretty much frozen in place, the pass keys destroyed, the systems dead. They can go in and replace and rebuild, but they also have to get through the silo containers. Again it can be done, but probably not in our lifetime. They have not been too worried, believing we cannot use them against them, either. And they cannot use them against us. But we are working on it.”

  Olga nodded, though one could see she was not yet mollified. “So, your answer is still conjecture, because you do not know what they can or will do. You hope you are ready.” Typical of many high level detail folks, she was standing by her own facts, not someone else’s guesswork.

  “Let’s just say it is highly classified, Olga, and leave it at that. Admiral, you have a question?” Sometimes, the stubborn cross their arms over their chest and announce, “Don’t confuse me with facts. My mind is made up!” He refused to play the game.

  The Admiral was always articulate, very knowledgeable, and he ran a tight ship. Well, used to run a fleet of them. When he had some of those. “If you can break into the Star Wars System, why can we not break into the warships… Why if I had a tenth…”

  Washington’s hand went up, cutting off the flow, as he said, “Hold it, Sir. Your interest in wiping out the enemy is very admirable. But the difference is space. As in, the Cyborgs seem to have no interest in space, and our equipment is far out there in high orbit.

  “Our moon habitat will be on the far side, just behind the horizon from Earth, so will probably not be noticed. Anything done here, on land and on sea, will be monitored closely. Instead of simply decommissioning the ships, they will destroy each and every one, from all countries. See the difference?”

  “Well, okay, I get it. Look, I have my lists of the nuke engineers. That is my contribution. These people can build a nuclear plant, any size, any power, from the ground up. All they need is the materials. If the engines are to be nukes, the engineers are sailors, and they will go right along to keep things running. And I have chosen them to fit within the specs, to date. Naturally, we need to train up people behind them for the space journey.”

  Even Dr. Ulstavok nodded. The Russians, though part of the UE system, had lost their best ships and automatic warfare systems only in the past five years. And any attempt to rescue any unit resulted in the execution of the team and the destruction of the weapon. Usually in a heart beat. It had taken a half dozen lessons because, well, Russians can be hard headed. They got it, finally.

  The General looked from face to face, seeing only determination, tinged with an element of fear. Not so much for themselves, but they were formulating a plan to save the human race. They had to stand fast.

  Their failure could mean the end of it…

  CHAPTER 6

  Three MP’s found Christine in her silo quarters, well after the meeting. Though there were many caverns carved out at various points, there were plenty of barracks for the lesser troops, and those came with smaller caverns carved farther back for commissioned officers and their levels.

  A brief knock summoned her to the door, where two soldiers stood at attention with Sergeant Tina Simpson, who saluted and then handed her a sealed folder. The three waited while Christine opened it. Inside, it showed picture after picture of everyday security cameras catching the action, including hers and Michael’s.

  One of them was circled in red. There was, first of all, no security. The subject stepped out of his apartment and moved purposefully to the stairwell, headed down. And there, held in his right hand, a cellphone. The most dangerous piece of equipment mankind could use. And the Cyborgs favorite tool…

  She easily identified him as Lieutenant Commander Mikail Niguev, one of the few Albanians of rank in the UE. Yet, despite his best efforts, no one was foolish enough to trust him completely. Perhaps, they’d had cause.

  In the folder was a note with General Washington’s initials, allowing her to pick up the Albanian and detain him. She issued the orders, the three saluted and turned away to find the man. And there would be no escape. These were not the Cyborgs slow, well fed morons…

  It had been an interesting exercise by the XO, and a good one, but it did not find the final culprit. The envelope showed every single one of them, or, where they lived in partnership, the pair fighting their way out of their apartments. It had been an unsuccessful sweep, all right.

  Now, it was lights out. Tomorrow, they began additional training on old, stand alone flight simulators. Old, because, once again, the computers were not wireless, but self-contained, and less vulnerable to detection. They had six of them, leftover from the Air Force, which no longer existed. But the units were worth their weight in gold for an operation like this.

  A half hour later, she was in dreamland, and it was all about the moon… she could hardly wait.

  -----

  Michael threw up his hands in disgust. Three times he had come in for the allegedly gentle landing on the moon, and three times he had slammed the nose down over the lead braces. It was deceptive. A Navy pilot, he’d known the sense of gravity on various planes. This should have been a cakewalk. Not a crash.

  Christine gave him a grin, as he came out of the unit, his face a cloud. “Come on, you flew hundreds of times faster over heavy gravity. This is slow motion over less than twenty percent. Just let it flow. You seem to be hurrying it.”

  “Thank you for your suggestions, big sister. I will get it. These old simulators are not very responsive.”

  “Maybe so, but they are better than crashing the real things. And much less expensive.”

  “Okay, smarty, show me.”

  They had taken turns on the liftoff practice, nothing to it. Now, they each had three tries to bring the shuttles in on jointed landing gear, rather than a regular ‘wheels down’ landing. Sand on the moon was far too soft to trust the wheels. This was much different than flying in on down the runway, as it was designed.

  “Part of it might be the programming. We do not have a lot of data for handling a converted shuttle. Hell, it is going to be seventy feet longer,” Michael complained.

  Of course, this was not the shuttle of the late twentieth century, but a sleek, self-propelled flight machine used to ferry people and materials to the ISS… when it had been operational. Now, only computers ran the ISS, even though there were humans working from concealment on board..

  Interestingly, the Cyborgs had not discovered how to handle it, or maybe they never wanted to. That had already come in handy, taking back the Star Wars weapons.

  “I know. I will be back in a few.” Christine closed the door, sitting in a noiseless, climate adjusted cabin that, for all intents and purposes, was the inside of a big shuttle.

  Then, for three straight tries, in total perfection Commander Christine Washington showed her DNA. True, she was older and wiser than her brother, but he would catch up. It was in the genes.

  Even if he would not talk to her for an hour after the trials. She was piloting the lead craft in twenty days. His was two months out. “Gives you time for practice, li’l bro!” Then she grinned. He would have gotten angry, but he knew her. She was egging him on because she believed in him.

  At this moment, as they walked back into the main quarters, the cells stacked like an insects’ hive, the bustle all around the country was to get the rockets converted, set up the simultaneous launch… direct several million people undercover and out of sight… even underground, and somehow, to keep it all a secret from the Cyborgs. A single flse in all the planning, all the logistics, and it would all be for naught. That was unthinkable.

  CH
APTER 7

  There is always a fly in the ointment, right? Only one remaining member of the HQ group in Missouri was a spy. An almost perfect spy, as he was human. The most liberal of the group, Parker was also the weakest. He simply did not believe the grandiose plan in place. He did not believe they could fund it, build it, and escape the notice of the Cyborgs. He had been on duty the morning of the attacks, and had obediently moved to the back of the room.

  So, once the Cyborgs figured it out, they would all perish, executed as quickly as the Cyborg’s enforcers could find them. His philosophy was to win the hearts and minds of the Cyborgs and come to an agreement. But, then, they had no hearts and minds…

  He, of course, wore no device to record the conversations. He made few comments during the presentations and the decision to finally go forward. The group disbanded after almost twelve hours.

  The attendees were carried off in golf carts, analog tools that could not be tracked, out down a half a dozen different mining and or sewer tunnels, laid down over two hundred fifty years prior. Deep underground, the compound was safe from prying eyes… except for Parker.

  A chubby man, wearing enough facial hair to look professorial, he wore the stereotypical gray jacket with brown leather elbow patches and wrinkled trousers. His shoes were worn, brown, and untended for the past year. But then, shoe polish was no longer an available product. Many things were not.

  His fringe of hair surrounding a bald pate told of his number of years rising at Yale, but it also told of his wisdom in choosing the winning side. He was doing his best to be the last man standing on earth, if necessary, in league with the Cyborgs.

  But then, he had no idea that they had hundreds of such spies scattered all over the world… what was left of it.

  Once at the last enclosed room of this particular long tunnel, he and two others were blindfolded, then loaded onto old fashioned, non computer controlled personnel carriers. No windows. These people, like the others, were whisked away, riding for three hours before they stopped. The truck had gone in circles, made lots of right and left turns, and frankly, it could be a couple of hundred miles away.

  In fact, it was just twelve miles as the crow flies, but that was assuming any survived. When the truck stopped, the blindfolds were reapplied and they were carefully guided out of the carrier, then across a wooden platform, by the sound of their shoes, and loaded onto a cattle car. The odor was one clue. The uphill ramp was another. And, of course, the sound of a train is easily recognized, even in standby.

  He did not know what state he was in, nor how to get to the tunnels. The Cyborgs only needed steel and the material to make more robots, so a cattle car seemed a bit outside the norm.

  The Cyborgs were systematically weeding out all unnecessary services. However, they still had a large contingent of ‘slaves’ to feed, so all allowed movement was tightly controlled.

  Parker thought he could help them figure out which train had brought him home when it came time. He thought he had a good sense of direction, but both coming in and going out, there was nothing but a box around him. He had been confined to the point that he had to admit, he had no idea where he was, or which direction they were going.

  A simple process would have answered the question. If the only screening was at the entry to the silo of HQ, he could have worn a bug right to the door and discarded it. But the rebels were too smart for that, promising ongoing observation, scrutiny and scanning. Whether they actually did it was immaterial. With the threat of instant death on capture, it worked.

  Inside the cattle car, behind a partition, there existed three rather nice compartments. All three were herded inside to their separate rooms, their blindfolds lifted, then the doors locked tight. From the outside. Then, finally, the outer cattle car door was similarly bolted.

  Parker was glad of the creature comforts, at least. He was not a talkative person. He had gained the head of his department by seniority and by being very intelligent. Yet, he could find no way at all to mark anything that could be traced. He would have no key to pointing out the rebels, as the Cyborgs called them, but he could at least tell the story. He could not even quiz his fellow passengers for key information.

  Dinner was served, a rather quality piece of beef, a rarity in any state. Potatoes, wine, all black market materials, as far as the Cyborgs considered them, but that did not stop the three from eating their fill. Drinking too much. Each very much alone.

  Eventually, they collapsed on their respective bunks, and all three were soon sound asleep.

  -----

  The occupants were taken out of the cattle car at different stops, catching different rides. Parker’s was to stop in what used to be DC. He had no idea that he had slept for two days getting here, and had been transferred twice. Strong drugs.

  Now, he stepped off the rail of the regular commuter car and looked around. Good, he was back in DC and on his own. It was not his first ride to the REP headquarters. Thus, he was not upset by the intricate process involved.

  He hailed a robotic cab and slipped inside. Each of the group had been ordered to use the services provided in an effort to avoid standing out.

  People traveled to work the same as always, mashed into commuter cars on long trains, or in crowded busses. Some by the new auto taxi. No one at all by car in this capitol city.

  There were no visible cars. The auto taxi was a carefully programmed hover craft, and it took the same routes to the same destinations, even hundreds of them, every time. No driver.

  As long as there was no uprising, certain skills from humans were in demand. The Cyborgs were trying to catch up with a million years in evolution, and though they were gaining, they had not reached it, yet. So, they hired and paid people to do their more esoteric work…

  In most cases, the humans had no clue to the higher level plans for their product, be it information or goods, and did not care. Survival was down to mindless function.

  Not so, Parker. He watched carefully out the back of the modern, sleek taxi, seeing no one following. But then, there was no need. The taxi was surely monitored from the system.

  On the exposed keyboard, he punched in the address of his office in DC and sat back. Merely an hour later, the taxi stopped just down the block from what had been the capitol of the United States. It had last been the general headquarters of United Earth, but that, too, had basically surrendered.

  Every president, king, leader, despot or not, was dead. No one stepped up to take their place, publically. Only those who stayed underground could hope to survive the beheading of the United Earth world organization.

  Looking left and right, up and down the block, he saw only autonomous people, some Cyborgs, a few humans, but nothing watching him, particularly. He crossed the street and entered his office building. Modern elevators whisked him up forty stories.

  His communicator on his desk spoke up as he entered his own office. He was no longer part of Yale, but he was a fount of information. The Cyborgs had put him to work, and even gave him a semblance of a career.

  A pretty, eye catching blonde with bright blue eyes came to life as he walked in. “Welcome back, Parker. Did you have a nice trip?” Too bad she was a Cyborg. He preferred warm women, though those were getting harder and harder to find…

  “It was uneventful, like always, Suzy.” He gave the security phrase in response.

  “You have a meeting in five minutes. Prepare yourself.”

  Immediately, without so much as checking messages, he moved to the north wall, where what looked like an elevator stood, doors open, waiting. But when he pushed the button, the elevator moved horizontally across a skyway, almost a quarter mile, directly to a tower built next to the Capitol Building.

  He pushed another button and the elevator dropped out from under him in a sudden descending that left his heart in his mouth. At the reasonable slowing, he shot his cuffs, straightened his Jacket and shook out his pants. It did not matter. They never noticed him, really.

  He step
ped into a foyer that held several people, most of them standing dead still, eyes either closed or staring, waiting for the start signal. It was uncanny. They looked human. They were not.

  He walked briskly to the main offices on the ground floor. There, two Cyborg security team members searched him with hand scanners, literally brushing over every part of his body. These were humans. The process was too intricate for Cyborgs. He could not have hidden a needle in his clothing. They found no weapons on his person.

  They opened the door and he was ushered into a stately room. At the far end, fifteen people, well, call them Cyborgs, clustered around a large vidscreen. They cheered as another big section of eastern Europe went devoid of life. Or, enough so that victory was certain. People in caves were no threat.

  Parker, nervous as hell, walked in among them, deriving no greeting, no salutation whatsoever, and said one word, only, “SHIT!”

  The tiny chip in his stomach, fed him with a half-pound of odd shaped explosives in plastic, during one of his unconscious periods, responded to an overwhelming sense of the Cyborg’s wi-fi. The scanner had awakened it, outside this office.

  Now, the sudden spark created a deep agony in his stomach, and hence the epithet, but it was far too late. One human and forty two Cyborgs, including the Extreme Leader, were completely destroyed, along with one entire section on the north side of the Capitol Building….

  Simple, really. None of the group should have been scanned. And they certainly had no business hanging out with twenty or thirty Cyborgs. Whatever he wanted to impart, it was painted on the wreckage around him…

  CHAPTER 8

  There are probably not words enough to describe the scurrying progress of a few hundred thousand people, like ants, under the radar, and underground, feeding materials and supplies to the silos located in Nebraska, Kansas and other Midwestern states, all done from Colorado.