by Ralph Rotten
Yet there they were; the ASAT165 Strategic Anti-Satellite missile. Adapted to fly higher and faster than the ASM135’s they had replaced, the overall length of the 165 had been shortened to allow it to fit in the enclosed launch bay of an F-22. Smarter than its predecessor by several magnitudes, the ASAT165 was a highly adaptable weapon.
While the Colonel was sure that his actions were shrouded in absolute secrecy, the very nanosecond that he made the inventory correction his activities were spotted miles away. Alexis had been watching that particular stockpile for days now. It pleased her to see that the transfer was right on schedule.
“The zombies are loading silver bullets.” She informed Jamie of the change on the ground. Making some rough calculations, she projected a countdown timer on his center monitor. Based on time-to-transport, followed by ferry time to get it into deployable range, she was able to calculate that the ASAT’s would not be ready for at least two hours. Even if the weapons went straight from silo to fighter, there was still the issue of getting the things across the country. The few ASAT165’s that had been produced were stored on the west coast in Colonel Pablo Dejesus’s warehouse. Even at top speed, it would take an F22 Raptor quite some time to catch up with Jamie and Alexis on the east coast. Until then, Jamie had a full calendar.
“Bring us to a hover directly over the capital.” Content with letting Alexis handle the flying, Jamie preferred to manage the big picture. “First thing, we need a good selfie. No gentleman is ever complete without a truly braggadocios selfie, or so they say in all of the columns.”
Leaning forward, he snapped a photo of his helmeted face against the backdrop of the monitors. On the screen behind him, Alexis appeared with a devious smile on her digital face. Taking a moment to examine the result, he quickly uploaded the document to a cloud repository.
“You’d think I would get more bars up here.” Showing a frown, Professor James seemed disappointed at signal strength for his cell phone.
“We are seventy miles above the city. I am deviating slightly to avoid an orbital collision with what appears to be a discarded metal panel.” Though it seemed effortless, Alexis had to dedicate a sizeable portion of her resources to scanning the sky and avoiding impacts. Having climbed to 400,000 feet MSL, there was a myriad of junk and debris, all in decaying orbits and ultimately destined to burn up on reentry.
“You are doing a very good job, Alexis.” Giving a stretched smile, Jamie patted the monitor lovingly.
His helmet speakers filled up with a rhythmic sound that seemed to soothe. “What is that?”
“Cat purring.” Alexis spoke up over the rippling sound.
In his space suit Jamie considered that briefly. Running the idea through the massive processor that was his brain, the savant came to a conclusion very quickly.
“Yes, I like that. The purring of a cat; but without hairballs, or hair, or a disgusting litter box that needs scooping every day.”
“Shall I resume?” Alexis kept her voice neutral.
“Yes, I would like that indeed.” Sitting back, the savant allowed his eyes to close in contentment as he took it in.
But Jamie’s happiness was short lived; within a few seconds he was already moving to the next task on the check list. Releasing a small backpack from the nearby wall where it had been secured, Jamie had the assembly in his lap where he could look it over.
One of the few devices that had been built jointly by the brothers, it was really just a box with two oxygen bottles inside. Fitted with compatible attachments to fit his space suit, the air-pack had been Jamie’s contribution to the effort. On the outside of that was strapped one of the anti-grav man-packs that Jack had built. A third item clipped to the bottom was one of Jack’s EMP devices rigged to fire continuously. Not a big package, it was only intended as a life raft. With no more than a half hour worth of air in the twin bottles, he knew that it was a short-range device at these altitudes.
“Let’s have some fun while we’re up here.” A twang to his voice announced the arrival of Country Jimmy as he grinned maniacally. “See if you can spoof the SETI receivers from here. Send ‘em a message from aliens…space aliens, not the kind that voted for Hillary.”
“But…” Alexis started out hesitantly, still unsure of his meaning. “Oh, I see what you did there. That was humor. It was funny because it was ironic because that’s…”
“Tell ‘em we come in peace, then give a macabre laugh, like bwa-ha-ha.” Chuckling, he seemed amused by the idea of SETI researchers scrambling to figure out what kind of ship could be holding a geosynchronous orbit at only 450,000 feet MSL.
“Then, call the Air Force and tell them we’re here for peaceful reasons, but say it with a Russian accent, like all Agent Romanov, y’know?” Leering, Country Jimmy sat forward as he eyed her buxom avatar on the monitor.
“Wheech waaay to the nuclear wessels!” Alexis felt the inexplicable need to giggle as she quoted Chekov.
“How’s it goin’ wit’ them foreign servers?” Pretending to be bored, Jimmy leaned on his elbow examining the readouts on his monitor.
“I have co-opted them all. Data transfers are in various stages of completion. I should be ready to begin the digital tsunami in roughly thirty-one minutes.” Her image appearing on the center monitor, Alexis had come to learn which of Jamie’s personalities preferred to have her avatar visible. While Professor James considered it illogical for her to waste the system resources rendering herself, Country Jimmy was a huge fan of her busty avatar.
“Yeah, baby. Poke them commie bitches in the eye. And as soon as you get their data, tell the feds where all the enemy agents are so they can be picked up, like a big ‘ol rattlesnake roundup!” Grabbing a fistful of air, Country Jimmy pretended to grab one of the slithering agents. Inside his helmet he grinned maniacally.
“Andrews Air Force Base is on high alert, but the package still has not arrived.” Her voice sounded far off, as if she were devoting great amounts of her resources to something else.
“Everyone’s a superhero, everyone’s a Captain Kirk.” A twang to his voice, Country Jimmy recited the lyrics as he imagined the military chaos below.
“The phones at SETI are blowing up. I can see a lot of traffic on their lines.” Throwing out an update, Alexis locked them into a geostationary holding pattern directly over DC. “Same for the phones at the White House, Pentagon, and all of the major press outlets.”
“Send a press alert with our current location, and mention that SETI is probably already aiming a telescope or two at us. NASA’ll be looking at us with their telescope in Maryland. Hell, I bet we’se visible with any decent amateur telescope.” His voice echoing in his helmet, Jimmy activated the external lights to make them extra visible to anyone who may have been watching. No doubt they would appear to be a new star in the Washington sky.
Staring at the digital screen before him, his only regret at that moment had been in not building a real window. Sure, he had the monitors that rendered their view from the external cameras, but that was no comparison to looking out real glass windows with his own eyes. Unfortunately portals would have been problematic to their design, especially when it came to concealing the vehicle on the rooftop of a high security prison. A window on a water tank would have raised some serious questions.
“I am done transferring the last of the data servers to cloud storage.” A cheer to her voice, Alexis happily reported her progress.
“Then begin operation Information Dissemination.” His voice changed to a deep baritone as Professor James thumped a gloved fist off of the arm rest.
A news junkie, Jenna had several alerts set up on her phone to notify her to breaking news. Really it was something she had been doing for years. Not only was it important for her as a federal agent to keep abreast of any important events that may be unfolding in her nation, but from the perspective of a case officer it was a way to know when her investigations had made the press. Things change when your case goes viral.
The s
tory over Washington, DC, had started out as a humorous one. Someone had tried to spoof the SETI researchers, but when they triangulated on the sender’s actual location, they were even more amazed. It was not just that someone was playing games with them from a low-earth orbit. They were not even orbiting at all; somehow they were hovering at just over 450,000 feet mean sea level.
It was this last detail that stopped so many scientists in their tracks. Normally such an altitude would be maintained by orbiting the planet at just the right velocity; not too fast or the orbit will expand, and not too slow or the orbit would degrade. It was this tug of war between inertia and gravity that made orbital dynamics possible. But the idea of hovering at such an altitude, of establishing what amounted to a low altitude geostationary orbit was something that stunned academics everywhere. To stay aloft in one spot that way required an enormous amount of energy by modern standards. The last time anyone had seen a feat like that had been the Queen Mary.
Yet there was the video, showing an indistinguishable speck in the sky. Jenna had already found the same or similar footage on three different newsfeed sites. It was trending fast on Twitter, and all over YouTube. The press had picked up the SETI story and run everything they could dig up. Although the people at SETI doubted it was an actual alien visitor, the fact that it was now tied to the Queen Mary episode was more than enough to pique the world’s attention. Even the Spanish stations were covering the event.
Intent on the picture she was watching, it irritated Jenna when her phone rang. One glance told her it was a Washington, DC, phone number; something she needed to answer even though she really did not want to. Thus far she had found the people in DC to be wholly unpleasant, even the president’s secretary. Apparently in Washington, hospitality was not wasted on the minions.
“Agent Jaramillo.” She kept her answer simple.
“Martin DeColle here. Why is your subject hovering over Washington in a homemade space ship?”
“Why did you shoot down Jack Sparks?” Answering his question with one of her own, Jenna had no intention of budging.
“Pardon me?” The voice at the other end of the line exhibited genuine surprise.
“You sent a gunship to shoot down Jack Sparks.” Jenna’s voice held a note of condemnation.
“You must be mistaken-” Martin started out before he was cut off.
“An Apache gunship shot him down, and I was there when it happened. How could I possibly misconstrue that scene?” She suddenly regretted snapping that way; this was the White House she was talking to, after all.
There was shuffling about at his end and it sounded a lot like the Chief of Staff was ordering someone to turn on the television. Finally returning to the line, Martin DeColle had managed to buy himself enough time to come up with a plausible response.
“I was unaware of this event.” He lied.
“Bullshit. Stateside gunships do not get deployed with live ammo on accident. Those orders had to come from pretty far up the chain. You got your plans to the Deathstar; you had everything you needed, so why did you shoot him down?” Her Latin ire flashed as she resisted the urge to burst.
Exhaling, Martin DeColle sounded tired. Leaning forward at his own desk, he gave careful thought to what he said next.
“Jack was a containment issue. We were paying for exclusive rights to those designs, and when it looked like one of the brothers was fleeing the country, the order may have been given to secure the package.”
“So what about James, hovering over the city? If he doesn’t agree to surrender to protective custody are you going to shoot him down too?” Her tone acrid, she feared being right this time.
“That is exactly what I was calling you to about. Can you talk him down? He’s a wanted felon now, and we certainly cannot have him falling into the wrong hands, now can we?” His confidence returning, DeColle knew to focus on the real prize. “So call up your boy, and talk him down before something bad happens.”
Abruptly, the line went dead. Just like that Martin DeColle was off to the next dirty little task on his calendar.
Although she should have expected it, Jenna was still surprised when her phone rang immediately after the Chief of Staff hung up. Glancing down, the agent could see that the caller ID listed the name ALXS.
“Hello, again.” Jenna answered, expecting to talk to the young lady who had greeted her in the past.
“Well, well, well, if it ain’t that little Latin filly from the FBI.” Country Jimmy greeted her warmly.
Taken aback by the approach, Jenna took a moment to figure out who it was.
“Jamie?” She asked unsure.
“At yer service, Ma’am. I had a feelin’ y’all was gonna call me so I had m’ girl Alexis speed dial ya. Y’know, to save you all the work of typing in all them digits.” He gave a snort at his own joke.
“How did you know I was going to call…?” She trailed off.
Ignoring the question, Country Jimmy charged on without hesitation.
“So, I bet you wish you’d stayed in bed this morning, eh?” Again that laugh; like he found it all funnier than hell. “So now that you talked to Mister DeColle you know the lay of the land. They mean to possess m’ skinny black ass if that’s what it takes to keep their new toy secret. But what you probably didn’t know was that they’ll burn anyone close to us too. That means you.”
“Oh?” She asked uncertainly, even though Jack had told her the same thing.
“To pull this off…” Professor James took over the conversation. “They would need to tie up any loose ends, discredit anyone who could prove to be a threat down the road. People like you, people with the knowledge and conviction to speak out against their crimes. To keep you quiet, they will preemptively destroy your career. In all likelihood the issue has already been decided. Once they have disposed of me, expect some form of disciplinary action, followed by a reassignment to somewhere obscure. Is there an FBI office in Nome, Alaska? No, that may not be obscure enough…”
Jenna jolted at the idea that they would come after her next. Her first instinct was to deny it. After all, she was a decorated federal agent, a combat veteran…not some criminal. She had served her country with honor and distinction; how could they possibly smear her unblemished reputation.
But then again, she had seen what they did to Jack. Having been on the front lines of this event, she knew all too well the enormous pressure to obtain this technology. Could the might of the White House crush her like a bug? Absolutely. Although she loved her country dearly, she had no illusions about the people elected to manage it. Many, many times she had been surprised with what passed for a code of conduct among senators and congressmen. In law enforcement such indiscretions resulted in summary termination, but in politics it only earned them more press.
“However…” Professor James’ voice turned pleasant. “If you turn your attention to the printer in the next room, you will find a get-out-of-jail card printing juuust for you.”
Padding into the other room in her bare feet, Jenna was surprised to see her home printer busy at work creating documents in a neat little pile. Pulling the first sheet, she recognized only long columns of figures, some kind of accounting? The other pages showed records of donations, phone records, emails, and a series of phone transcripts between the president and half a dozen other people.
“You may want to add more paper.” The professor seemed proud of the fact that he was using up all of her supplies.
After a morning round of golf, Phelps was back in the Oval Office. Walking into the fray that was his office, he immediately wished he was back out on the greens.
“Sir, we have the Washington Post calling about a Mensa test you took once?” It was his Press Secretary, Betty Smith, a tiny little wisp of a thing who had been with the president since he was a senator.
DeColle met him halfway across the room. “Sir, we are getting calls from the press, a lot of calls.”
“Tell them it’s not our space ship, we have no c
omment on it.” Shrugging it off, Phelps felt pleased with himself for coming up with so simple an answer for such a complex problem.
“No, sir, they’re calling about old history, like the Michigan deal, or Atlanta.” Raising his eyebrows, Martin tried to remind his boss what had been done in those sites during the campaign. “And other places as well.”
Shrugging, it seemed simple enough to Phelps. “Do what we always do; deny it, and have the lawyers sue anyone that’s making serious allegations.”
“This is different; they are asking about everything.” DeColle again flared his eyebrows to accent the nature of everything. “They are asking a lot of new questions about things they never knew about.”
Dismissing the problems, Phelps found his way to his desk chair. Hand-made in Burma, the rolling office throne had set the White House budget back a mere $6K. Always careful to unbutton the front of his jacket before he sat down, the President had spent his life wearing suits.
Next in line was his secretary; she had leaders of two congressional committees waiting outside for unannounced visits. While it was rare for anyone to realistically expect to see the president without an appointment, the senators were in quite a huff. Additionally, they had used derogatory words to describe something he had done in Rochester. Finally holding out a sheaf of papers, the matronly secretary hoped that her boss would take the appointment.
Giving the printouts a cursory glance, Phelps simply tossed the papers to one side of his desk. Complex ledgers were not his forte. By his thinking, if he was not an accountant then how could he be in trouble for accounting irregularities?
Still holding a cell phone to one ear, Martin DeColle used his remaining hand to grab the discarded papers. A few seconds was all it took before his eyes grew wide. Feeling light headed, the little chief-of-staff half spun before collapsing to the floor in a heap.