by Tom Holloway
She is excited and yells over the wind hitting the car, “Henry, do you see that? It’s some kind of spaceship. It really is a spaceship. It’s incredible! It’s huge. Do you see it? It’s just floating above the clouds. It looks like a bright star hovering, ready to escape back to the heavens. Can you believe this? Are you seeing what I’m seeing, or am I dreaming this? This is wild! Is that where we’re going?” Eyeing me, she exclaims, “Henry, am I hearing you right? You really are its captain? How is that possible? Do you work for NASA?” Looking at me with a more bewildered expression—no, maybe it is more of an electrified look, certainly not calm—she cries, “It was you who saved our lives!”
I look back at her attentively, needing to reassure her. “Anna, the starship saved our lives, not me. It will be all right, and you have nothing to fear. You are not crazy, and you are not dreaming. And I think you probably need to prepare yourself. You might be a little bit overwhelmed. You need to trust me. I can explain everything. Please don’t worry; this will be a new life experience. Think of it as an adventure.”
The Cyclone opens her cargo bay doors. We quickly slide in, the Ship Tender going in first then drawing us in, the SUV landing with a jolt, tires squealing. This all is happening fast. Unfortunately, when the bay doors opened, we created more of a radar signature. Radar, although primitive, still works well. We have to move out quickly, need to leave Earth fast. Maybe we were spotted; the US Air Force might be coming. Yes, the Cyclone is telling me fighter jets, F-16s, are coming fast out of Andrews and will be there soon. A confrontation with them would be bad, though we have nothing to fear other than them knowing we exist. The Cyclone has a security field they cannot penetrate, and I do not think they can clearly see us now. However, invisibility shields have vulnerabilities. If we leave this planet, life will be easier for us.
We are moving out. I can feel the ship starting to accelerate, the pressure of the gravity, climbing fast, leaving Earth, back in stealth mode. We should be mostly invisible. Plus, we’re leaving this atmosphere quickly, heading toward the Earth’s moon, about twenty-five thousand miles away. We will be there in minutes, accelerating the entire way, now already at sixty thousand miles per hour, maybe hitting five hundred thousand miles per hour about the time we pass the moon. Regrettably, it will be possible to see our engine blast, a thrusting fire stream visible from Earth. With this kind of acceleration, we will have a tail blast about two thousand miles long, getting longer as we gain speed.
At some point Anna and I need to get out of the SUV and head for the control room, the ship’s center of operations—really my office, or the captain’s bridge. I need to be patient now, need to let Anna have a chance to calm down a little, sort this out mentally. I want to show her so much, as I know she will be amazed once she has a chance to explore my world. The captain’s bridge is where we can see outer space ahead of us, all 360 degrees, the total surrounding field of space for thousands of miles. To see it for the first time is breathtaking, almost supernatural, certainly incredible.
Chapter 11
Cyclone’s Introduction to Anna
The Cyclone has no visible openings, no real windows, just sixteen round crystal eyes looking like six-foot portholes evenly placed around the hull, eight of them up front and then another eight at the back of the ship. These are the ship’s eyes, looking everywhere, in all directions, then relaying back the 360-degree view of space to the ship’s captain’s bridge, showing up as real-sight visual displays, very detailed, with long-range telescoping when requested. It will show thousands and thousands of miles in great detail on a six-foot-high, half-inch spectrum plasma screen wrapped around on a circular room wall. It shows the entire 360-degree range, all directions around the ship, and an outside view of space in every direction. All views are in perfect focus, with a full-color spectrum, magnified when needed, better than your own eyesight and three-dimensional. It helps me a lot, and it is my design. I am a visual kind of guy.
The captain’s bridge is in the top of the forward part of the ship, also redesigned by me. It is hard to describe the look. It might be compared to a modern US Navy battleship bridge, with smooth light-gray walls and a grated floor, with heavy captain’s chairs that look like big leather sofa seats, comfortable, ten of them spaced apart in a semicircle. They are designed to look to the front or, swiveling, to view the six-foot plasma screen wrapped around the entire room, with each seat swiveling 360 degrees to see the outside panorama. The room is ten feet tall, eighty-eight feet in diameter, bending in front as a curved arc and as part of the total circle, then sixty-two feet in forward-length diameter, thus more of an oblong.
There is little equipment in the room. Instead there are ten large floating, transparent five-foot-square visual screens that change shape depending on need. They will expand and show control boards, graphics, instrument readings, propulsion systems, navigation, weapons, ship operation conditions, all red- and yellow-lighted data, some green meters. They are all displayed in front of each seat and floating to where you need them, presented for easy use and the controls triggered as you think about them. The floor and ceilings have partially hidden storage compartments; otherwise, it’s mostly clean lines, with no structure other than regularly spaced handholds, several cabinets, a few tables, and one hidden bathroom tube. The room is functional and certainly not cozy.
The room also houses the brains of the Cyclone. It has four large floating live artificial intelligence entities and, for want of a better description, live cyber-computer beings, not organic, no physical bodies. They are more like clouds of pure energy, just boundless intelligence. They are weightless clouds floating about the room, moving as they want, using the power of magnetism, maybe eight feet high and four to five feet wide, constantly changing shape and colors and brightness. They are the full range of colors, sparkling pinpoints of light and the entire spectrum of light, coming from billions of biosynthetic neurons all connected by sheer energy and by a powerful self-created magnetic field.
They are not human yet are close to human in their own way. They really are ancient alien beings, maybe better than human. I have initials for each: K-HO, M-HO, F-LA, and G-BE. I have known them since 1945, when I became the Consortium’s military commander and the Cyclone’s captain. They came with the starship, have been on it since its birth. They are my friends, as we have been together all these years. We are close comrades or, better, more like siblings. We are also telepathically in sync. They are my backup team, a fantastic resource. As long as I am on the Cyclone or in laser-wave distance, which is a long way, we are linked mentally.
They operate the Cyclone, as they are its brains, its operations processor, and its memories. They also increase my mental horsepower dramatically. The aggregate of their beings are the Cyclone’s identity. Their mental ability combined is beyond comprehension, as their massive databases are collected from the entire universe. To keep the ship running, they have daily responsibilities: keeping and updating the ship’s log, the navigation system, the piloting, the maintenance warning system, the communications system, life support systems, energy creation, the ship’s conductor of daily activities, the operational data bank, historical archives, the weapons systems, operating the propulsion control, the security system, and all calculations and formulas. They also control everything else.
There is one real amazing reality, which was hard to get used to in the beginning. We are more than close, more than working companions. We are in one another’s heads. We are all symbiotic. They are the Cyclone’s multiple mental resources. The aggregate result is the Cyclone, the best starship in the universe. I am the Cyclone’s captain and linked to it mentally, closely telepathic. We know each other’s thoughts. The Cyclone follows my directions, although we have arguments. Even though these factors are powerful influences internally on the Cyclone, it is still synchronized as one entity, which is the Cyclone persona. Yet the Cyclone must accept my final decisions, my free will, as I have final say and accountability. Those are the rules.
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br /> I am looking at Anna intently, wondering how to help her transition to this new reality.
We are still in the truck, and I can feel the effect of the lack of gravity; we are weightless, having left Earth’s gravitational field. This is usual for me, weird for Anna. I know she must feel uncomfortable, and I wonder about her. She is floating in the SUV’s seat, the belt holding her from floating away. She looks like she is going to be sick, and I know she is worrying about what to do if she throws up.
I ask her, “Are you OK? Do you understand about the loss of gravity? You’re feeling sick, aren’t you?”
She’s looking at me with great fear in her eyes, totally pale. She says in an anxious voice, almost a whisper, “I understand you without your talking. You are in my head, and I can feel it. How much do you know about what I’m thinking? Are you human? Are you an alien? How did you do that? You don’t work for NASA, do you? Where do you come from? Who are you?”
I am not sure how to respond. Honesty is good.
“Anna, I don’t know where to start. I am from Earth. Yes, I am human, or mostly human, although older than you think. I can explain more as we get to know each other. Interestingly enough, I am telepathic, part of an enhancement. As you know you are also now telepathic because you are on this ship. You hear my thoughts, as I hear yours. It was necessary for you to be enhanced, too. It’s so you can communicate with the crew. You have been given a communications enhancement. It is not harmful, almost invisible, and similar to what you would call a little computer module. It happened as we boarded the ship. It’s a tiny drone I call a slip, and it was inserted behind your temporal lobe and another one in your frontal lobe. That is what gives you my thoughts, as I hear yours, and I feel your emotions. I hear only what you want me to hear. The crew and the ship can hear you, too, when you direct your thoughts to them. Otherwise no one on board would understand you, nor could you understand them.”
Anna does hear me in her mind. She is wondering if I am hearing the massive feeling of terror in her head. One good thing, it has cured her stomachache; she no longer feels nauseated, just scared more than she thought possible. Not throwing up is good. She is shaken, not sure what to say or think, but no spoken words are needed. This could not be happening to her, she thinks. Could her thoughts be heard? What are the chances of being on an alien starship? This is so way out there. Then there is me. Who am I?
I am now apprehensive, looking at her and nodding, saying to her, “Yes, Anna, I can feel or understand your questions, and yes, it is a bizarre feeling. You will be amazed as you use it. Believe it or not, you will get familiar with it, and you will love it. Anna, please understand, it is for your own good. You are not on Earth anymore. There are several challenges facing you; communication is just one. Are you able to deal with the loss of gravity, no weight? You are not getting sick? Are you breathing comfortably? The ship will provide you with the correct oxygen levels automatically, meant just for you.”
Anna does not respond, just looks away, trying to figure out what to say or, in this case, think. She is trying hard to feel comfortable with this and with me.
I can feel her sense of vulnerability, her confusion, her fear and anxiety. She will sort it out. I force myself to be patient. She needs time to adapt, to gather her courage.
Finally she looks back at me, saying, “I think I am beyond getting sick, or I would be sick, although it’s hard to get my balance. I’m OK as long as I have something to hold on to, not free floating, then it’s really easy to feel sick. I’m also trying to get a handle on this telepathy thing. I am really trying hard not to panic!”
I know I can pull more from her mind. However, the slips are instructed to give her privacy and to protect her. The two slips are watchdogs, making it difficult for her to get in trouble on board the ship and to protect her from any unforeseen enemy when we are back on Earth. Life may change a lot for her.
The drones, or the slips, will give me notification if she is in trouble, depending on how far she is from the Cyclone. No question I now feel a great fondness for her. I know this is for her own good, yet I feel guilty about hiding from her this possible need for protection. I am somewhat surprised by my feelings, and, unfortunately for me, I feel very protective of her. I am responsible for these events and not sure what will happen now. This is not a good sign for me. It is getting complicated. This has never happened before. There are severe consequences to ending up close to her—for both of us.
Anna finally looks directly at me with her big blue eyes, with a calmer expression, not so pale, informing me mentally using thought projection, “I think the slip thing in my brain is really eerie and not high on my list of good things to happen to me. I am OK for now. I can’t feel anything strange, and nothing hurts. I think I’m all right. I don’t feel threatened. In fact, oddly enough, I feel safe with you. I hear your words mentally, and then, the good part, I feel your emotions without your words, and it feels nourishing. I can’t explain it. Actually it’s comforting, really quite awesome. I also know you’re human, a man. I feel it from you.” Anna blushes at this, looks away, and smiles at the same time.
I smile, too. She is regaining her confidence. I feel what she is feeling, something I have not felt in many years. It feels good and makes me wonder.
Anna interrupts my thoughts, asking, “You are human, yet where are you from? This starship is not from here. Who are you? You are the ship’s captain? Why are you here, and are there more of you? What are we going to do now, and when are we going back to Earth?”
“Anna, I can explain everything. Do you have a couple of days to spend some time on the ship, travel, see some of the solar system? Do you have time for an adventure? You will be amazed.”
She starts to answer but stops. A worried look comes over her face, then she blurts out, “Oh my gosh, my mother!” She reaches for my arm, looking at me. “Henry, I just remembered, we’re supposed to be at my parents’ house. I need to make a phone call right now. They’ll be worried. Do you have some way I can call them before they start to think they need to call the police? When are we going to be home?”
I’m thinking this is more of a problem than Anna thinks, as a phone call transmission from the Cyclone from out here, now six hundred thousand miles from Earth, has a good chance of being picked up by some government, and they will wonder. We went beyond the Earth’s moon some time ago, heading for Mars and picking up more speed fast. I need to make that call quickly, before we are beyond our ability to patch into a cell-phone network. I know I really can’t say no; her parents will be worried. And what could happen from one phone call? A lot!
Yet I say, “Anna, just use your cell phone. The Cyclone will patch you in. It will be a little fuzzy, as we are a long way from the United States.”
Anna looks for her purse in the SUV, and she sees it is floating with all the other stuff. She grabs it, takes out her cell phone, and dials, and it rings. Her mother answers. Anna looks at me and smiles, whispers, “Thanks!” then says into the cell phone, “Mom, yes, this is Anna. Sorry for not calling earlier. I’m going to be late getting there, a couple of days late. I just wanted to call and let you know and tell you not to worry.” Her mother says something, and Anna replies, “I know. I should have called, and I needed to tell you I’m with a friend, actually a guy friend I’m traveling with. He wants to show me some scenery on the way, some really interesting out-of-this-world sights.” She smiles at her own pun, then a pause. Her mother is talking. Anna continues, “Yes, you will meet him, and you will love him. Is it OK if he stays with us?” Another pause, and Anna blushes, saying, “He’s just a friend, and yes…yes…I think he is special. I will see you in a couple of days. Please call Nikki for me. She will be worried.”
Anna laughs and looks at me. I shake my head and smile. I realize I love her laugh. She is looking at me, laughing and smiling a big happy smile. She says to me, “This is so weird, yet I know you will like my mother!”
I smile and actually feel h
appy, a rare feeling for me. I am beginning to feel like a normal human again!
Chapter 12
Chinese/Russian Army Deployment
While Anna is talking to her mother, the Cyclone feeds me a disturbing surveillance report on the mass of troops in Siberia that I spotted on my flight over Russia. To my amazement, it is enormous. There are 8,587 army divisions there, including 995,651 tanks; many more helicopters, missile launchers, and artillery guns; and many thousands of troop trucks. It is a mega massive army of both Chinese and Russian troops, about fifty-five million soldiers, mostly Chinese. They cover 280 square miles, all hidden from over flights by the dense woods and clever camouflage. They seem to be using some kind of massive video projection, giving the illusion of trees where there are none.
The real shocker: they are only about 150 miles from Alaska. Why are they there? What the hell is going on? They could be in Alaska in one day with all those troop trucks. The report also mentions that three Chinese aircraft carriers, plus two Russian carriers, have been deployed within three hundred miles of the Russian coast, near Alaska, within the last twenty-four hours. My flight over them must have motivated them to move forward with their plans, concerned about the element of surprise. Worse than that, there are several Russian nuclear-launch submarines moving into the North Atlantic Ocean, not far from the United States.
What a mess and impossible to fathom! How could they move so many troops and keep it secret? I know the United States does not know about it, as the Cyclone hacked into their systems, seeing everything they know. Is this the beginning of World War III? Why would the Russians and Chinese do this? Because we hacked into the Chinese classified data systems, I now know there was significant army-troop growth and large troop movements by rail and ships over the last three years, all going to Russia. There were also many meetings with the Russians, the Mexicans, North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran.