Timelines

by Bob Blink

  We headed to the base where we could complete the meeting in comfort. It was a bit strained, but he briefed Mike and myself on the construction work that was planned for the next couple of days. The weight and physical size of the weapons made it impossible to bring them up the existing narrow incline that existed outside at the moment. Also the front of the cave was far too narrow. They would be opening up the entrance, removing the rocks and mounds of dirt that had blocked the cave from view, and building a straight roadway that extended back from the cave all the way to the road. Instead of trying to climb up the side of the hill and then turning into the entrance, a long ramped roadway would be built. This would require tons of dirt and compacting, followed by rock, gravel, and finally a finish rock that could be compacted for traction. It was quite an under-taking, and they expected to have it completed in two days barring difficulties.

  The weapons would be here in another two days. They would be stored under guard on the property at the residence, until the time came to bring them inside. A special sled and pulley system would be used to slide the weapons up the internal ramp to the control level. He expected to have up to twelve men inside during the installation. Two would do the final arming of the devices. He asked if this was acceptable. We agreed, so long as each person entering passed our security check.

  I looked at the sketches of the finished roadway to the complex entrance. I couldn’t help noting that they would have the ability to bring almost anything up the inclined roadway once it was built. Maybe they had plans beyond what they were telling us. Maybe I was just paranoid. It would be interesting to see how Carol and Naiya reacted to the drawings when they returned in the morning.

  Chapter 54

  Time Complex

  [Seattle Time: Tuesday, 10 October 2006]

  Fourteen days until the enemy arrived. For the last three days the enemy ship had stayed right on the profile that Al had created. It would be interesting to see what happened after the utility ship that had carried away one of our people met up with the larger ship. From the projections taken off the display screens that would happen sometime Saturday. There had been more than a little speculation whether that would cause any changes in the enemy arrival date. We didn’t know if the ship was traveling at maximum speed or not. However after Saturday the aliens would know for certain that humans had found and occupied their station. They would have to suspect we had somehow managed to kill most or all of their crew as well. How would they react? I was pretty sure I could guess based on what we had seen so far.

  “No change?” asked Naiya as she came up behind me.

  She and Carol had come back yesterday, but very late. It was obvious they had a relaxing time, and both their attitudes had improved by the time spent away from the confines of the empty control center and base facility. She had been exhausted when they returned last night, and no attempts to urge her out of bed had worked this morning. Finally I had slipped away alone, eating a quick breakfast and then making my way to the complex so I could check on progress outside. After a brief interchange with the formal colonel, I had come back inside to check on the displays.

  She slipped her arms around me and laid her head against my back, holding me close.

  “Still tired?” I asked welcoming the personal contact. It had been incredibly lonely around here while they were gone. With only Mike, who was busy supervising his crew, Al who was still hidden away in his lab, and the cranky colonel to talk with, I had more time than I could easily handle. At least Dave had sent up some of the most recent items for review. It looked as if they had tumbled onto a block of translations that might start yielding clues to the operation of some of the equipment. I tried working my way through a couple of the printouts, but without the devices handy, and without the technical background required, I hadn’t made much progress. I had finally pushed the materials aside and decided to wait until Al’s team had a chance to sort through it.

  “A little,” she admitted, “but I’ll catch up tonight. How are you doing? It must have been awful, watching this place all alone.”

  I guess I hadn’t hid my feelings as well as I thought. “It’s weird,” I told her. “Here we are, waiting for an attack, bigger than anything we have experienced before. The last time we were all rushing to get ready, panicked they would arrive too soon. Now, with the end of everything we have worked on for so long, we are just sitting around, waiting.”

  “Not out there,” she said, waving her arm to indicate the direction that might be considered the entrance where the construction crew still labored away.

  “Yeah, okay,” I said. “But that’s different somehow. We aren’t doing anything ourselves, and even their schedule doesn’t seem rushed. Did you look out to see what they are doing?” Neither she nor Carol had been up to looking outside last night. It would have been dark anyway.

  “Nope,” she replied. “I figured we could go roust Carol, have a late brunch, then you could bring us up to speed. You said last night they don’t expect to finish until sometime the day after tomorrow.”

  “That’s what the colonel confirmed a little while ago. He actually expects the trucks carrying the bombs to arrive late tomorrow, but the ramp won’t be ready for them to attempt bringing the first weapon inside until noon or later the next day.”

  “Was he still grumpy?” she asked. I had told her about his reaction to our precautions.

  “Definitely cool,” I admitted. “He has made only one other trip inside since he first arrived, and that was to look at the displays showing the progress of the alien ship. I’m sure that was at the direction of someone in Washington. He was annoyed all over again when we made him pass through the scanner.”

  I wondered how he was communicating with Washington. We had some pretty sophisticated equipment, and had set up a monitoring site inside the residence. We knew the equipment was still working, but had picked up no communication. That meant he must be sending messages by courier far enough away we couldn’t detect them before they were transmitted via satellite back to his control center. I was assuming that meant Washington, but it could be somewhere else. I wondered where his uplink site was and what other people and equipment he had stashed away there. We could have tried to find out, but that would have meant sending some of our people outside with the associated risks.

  When we headed down the ramp to the tunnel room, we found Carol talking with John who must have just returned from his three-day trip uptime. They didn’t see us at first, but then John grinned when he noticed Naiya out of the corner of his eye. “Success,” he claimed. “We have everything we will need. I’ll leave a copy of the materials here, and copies in the Canada site and the data cache.” This was good news. It removed the last obstacle. We were as ready as we would ever be. Once the weapons were in place it would be done.

  “John’s going to leave in a few minutes,” Carol noted. He would be going to Canada in a couple of days once he was certain no one was keeping an eye on him. If it looked like they were, he would simply go back to his University tasks for a while. “Do we need to check with them before he goes? Is there anything else they need?” I could tell she had been out of touch for a few days.

  “Nothing I can think of. I talked with the team in Canada last night and everything is under control. People are settling in, but like us still waiting until the situation here is resolved.” We still had a secure communications system. If they were really interested, the group outside could monitor the transmissions we sent from just outside the cave. Our guests didn’t know where our messages were going, and they had no capability of breaking the advanced coding techniques. If they wanted they could shut us down, but that would alert us they had an agenda other than they had told us. So even if they had something in mind, for now they had to leave us alone.

  We all escorted John to the entrance and watched as he made his way carefully down the scarred incline toward the Ford that was still parked a bit down the road. For the first time the two women saw the change
s happening outside the entrance. Naiya gasped. “They destroyed the forest.”

  “It’s pretty ugly, I admit. But given the size of the bombs, this is the only way they think it will be possible to bring them inside.”

  “They couldn’t use a helicopter to lower them in and avoid all this?” Carol asked.

  I had wondered the same thing. Even given the massive weight of the device, some of the largest cargo choppers should have been able to handle the job.

  “The colonel wasn’t too forthcoming with details,” I told them. “When I asked he just said it had been considered and rejected.”

  “You think he’s up to something?” Carol asked.

  “I wish I knew,” I admitted. “We’ve got nothing to lose by letting them continue and hope they come through. They have to know the risks, and I made it very clear to the colonel when he arrived the facility will be damaged and lost to them no matter if the bombs they deliver work or not. He’s seen Mike’s preparations. He would have to pass that on. That should have given them something to consider.”

  “What about Jeff?” asked Naiya.

  “Not a word.” We had hoped he would learn something back in Washington and let us know. He had simply disappeared.

  We watched for a while as the heavy equipment continued bringing in the fill for the ramp. There was nothing we could do, and the noise and dust soon became annoying, so we headed back inside.

  Later that evening, after the colonel and his key people had left for the residence, Naiya and I made our way back outside to mingle with the men that were living in the tent camp just a bit up the road. While the ramp roadway wasn’t finished it now extended steeply upwards across the flat and although bumpy was easily traveled with one of the ATVs. We were jostled and bumped back and forth as we made our way slowly down the incline, the sounds of the ice sloshing back and forth in the large tubs that filled the sturdy little trailer being pulled behind us. The cans of beer were for the troops. Sometimes a pretty woman and few drinks can earn one valuable insight. It was worth a try. In this case there was nothing to learn. A few hours of socializing, during which time we told the workers more than they had known about the tunnel and the secrets inside. They seemed to know nothing of the colonel’s plans. If anything was up, it was something he had shared only with those who were back at the residence with him.

  Of course the colonel was not happy about the previous evening’s socializing when he learned of it. “How do you expect them to work if they are hung over?” he asked annoyed.

  I knew that wasn’t what was bothering him. A few beers would have no impact on the performance of these men. He knew exactly what I had been up to and didn’t like me checking on him.

  “It was worth a try,” I said, admitting I had been looking for information. “But you know there was nothing we could learn. You haven’t entrusted these men with what is going on. They didn’t even know about the time complex and the alien situation until we talked with them.”

  “You should not have told them. The complex and the alien threat is supposed to be treated as top secret.”

  “That’s from your perspective,” I informed him. “After this is over, we want the world to be aware of what has happened here. How else can mankind stay on the alert against their return?” I knew it was a pointless discussion. Secrets were a part of his existence, and this is one the political leadership would want to bury. Especially if they had plans regarding the complex they weren’t telling us.

  Afterwards we made our daily inspection of the status displays in the complex so he could verify for himself that the situation remained unchanged. This meant exposing him to the usual checks as he entered the complex, which only served to aggravate an already sensitive issue. As a result, our usual hour long status was concluded in less than half the time, and soon he was on his way back to the residence. The workers knew what needed to be done to finish up the roadway, and he was expecting the weapons to arrive just after lunch along with the rest of his team. He would be there if we needed him, making appropriate arrangements. I wondered what those would be. Rooms had already been allocated for the men that would be arriving with the convoy, and the area where the trucks with the bombs would be secured identified. What more did he have to do?

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  It was mid afternoon when Mike and I drove away from the complex toward the residence having received notice from the colonel’s on-site communications sergeant that the convoy carrying the weapons had arrived. Colonel Sanderson wanted us to come over so we could see the devices and so we could make plans for their transfer into the facility the following day. The ramp was virtually finished as we drove away, and would be capable of supporting the heavy trucks before the men completed work this evening. Naiya was unhappy about being left behind, but having two of us away from the tunnel entrance was more than I wanted to risk as it was. While the residence was technically ours, it was the colonel’s ground these days.

  It was great to be out, even for a short while. The autumn air was clean and crisp, and the leaves that had fallen from the tress rustled as we stirred up small clouds of them which had gathered along the roadway. More were falling from the tress that lined the small country road we traveled, floating on the wind until they settled gently to the ground. All too soon we were approaching the residence which had taken on the appearance of a small military base. The colonel’s fascination with secrecy made little sense. The activities underway here couldn’t be hidden from anyone who traveled past. Only the lateness of the season and the relatively secluded nature of the neighborhood prevented a crowd of on lookers. I wondered if they had blocked access to certain roads to further minimize the awareness of the activities taking place in this normally quiet little area.

  As we turned in, a man in green fatigues but wearing the insignia of an air force enlisted man waved us down. Instead of the usual 9mm Beretta used by the army, he wore a .38 or .357 magnum revolver on his belt. I could see an M-16 resting against the Humvee that was parked a few feet away with the communications gear that was used to communicate with the leadership up at the house. I guessed the vehicle served as their substitute for a guard shack. It took only a minute to identify ourselves and for him to verify we were expected. Nonetheless, he directed us to a spot only a few feet away rather than allowing us to drive up the cement path that would have taken us up to the house itself. There we were met and escorted on foot the rest of the way. My house is your house I thought wryly.

  The colonel met us at the door. I think he was enjoying the turn about. We had restricted him at the complex, and he was doing the same here. The fact his ‘headquarters’ was really our property didn’t seem to matter. For now, this was his territory. We would play by his rules. Mike frowned, but kept his silence. He gave me a look, but wisely let it go. It didn’t matter. The residence would be forfeit when this was over anyway.

  The colonel’s trucks had come with the rest of his people, and a significant number of vehicles. There were a number of Humvee’s, painted an Air Force gray rather than army green. Two large trucks with cloth covering over the back cargo area could have held a dozen men each, or a variety of supplies. As we continued to walk toward the back of the house, I could see three more large trucks parked in the shade and mostly hidden from the front road. They had torn the hell out of the grass getting back here, but I suspected these were the three bombs we all had been waiting for.

  The colonel didn’t disappoint me. He now had the opportunity to show us he had been up front with us all along. What had been promised, was being delivered. He took full advantage of the situation as he led us up to the first of the trucks and motioned to one of the airman that stood armed and ready around the trucks. The airman shouldered his rifle, and climbed up into the bed of the truck where he could release the restraints to the cover. From there he could pull open the long side door that disclosed the weapon that lay bolted to some kind of a frame that was in turn secured to the floor of the truck.
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  The bomb was huge. It was also very simple looking and ugly. There was nothing about the bomb that provided any hint to its true nature. It could have been just a very large chemical explosive device. I had see pictures of it before. The internet contained a great deal of information on nuclear devices, especially the unclassified files from a few years in the future. It was the same bomb. The simple metallic skin was shiny with a rounded blunt nose, and a slightly greater diameter at the base. Four stubby fins to provide stabilization as it fell marked it as a bomb as opposed to a warhead. Each of the fins was split halfway back, forming a ‘V-shaped’ structure.

  The colonel was describing what we had. The bombs had been taken from storage and no changes made due to the tight schedule we had forced on them. It seemed he was ignoring the fact the deadline was completely out of our control. The bombs still had their parachutes systems attached, which accounted for almost a thousand pounds of the total weight. The explosive package itself was housed inside the outer skin and was about three feet in diameter and just over eight feet long. It was designed with a uranium core and used enriched Lithium Deuteride as the fusion material. The firing system has a simple mechanical lock that would make our job a lot easier. It was actually not considered a very safe design I learned.

  “It looks old,” Mike noted.

  He was right. Even though it was in essentially perfect shape, the device looked old. Something about the way it was built. None of the smooth, streamlined touches one would expect of a more modern device. Everything was metallic. No signs of synthetics or plastics anywhere.